The brand’s current offering now includes a digital pairing of its 8S and 9S tractors to the LB Series large square Hesston by Massey Ferguson balers.

It improves tractor and implement co-ordination and simplifies processes for the operator.

WHY IT MATTERS: A system that allows helpful dialogue between a towed machine and a towing tractor may improve not just the efficiency of both units but the quality of the end commodity.

TIM (Tractor and Implement Management) allows a Hesston by Massey Ferguson large square baler to control the speed of an 8S or 9S tractor to maximize baler output and at the same time improve bale quality.

At the Commodity Classic farm show in Texas, the brand announced new 8S and 9S tractors will soon be available for order directly from the factory with TIM.

“The other exciting thing we’ve been launching at this show is Tractor and Implement Management for our 8S and 9S tractors,” says Derek Reusser, senior marketing manager for high horsepower tractors with Massey Ferguson.

“It’s new for 2026. It’s really all about facing challenges our farmers are facing with skilled operators.

“It really allows the implement to dictate what the tractor does. When we think about large square baling specifically, based on your flake count target, it will change the operating speed of the tractor.”

A sensor on the knotter trip wheel sends information to the tractor to control its speed, allowing it to keep feeding material into the baler at an even rate, which helps produce consistent bales.

“TIM Drive is what it’s called,” says Reusser.

“The knotter trip wheel is essentially counting your flakes. That flake count is communicated back to the tractor. We’re giving that system the capability to change the speed of the tractor based upon what it’s measuring.

“The flake size is really what farmers are looking at. For an eight-foot bale, you want about a 2.4-, 2.5-inch flake size to deliver that consistent length. Usually farmers are looking for about 40 flakes on an eight-foot bale.”

Added Jessica Williamson, marketing manager for hay and forage with Massey Ferguson: “All of our LB Series large round balers already come pre-equipped with TIM … so it’s not an add-on for our customers. All of them are ready to be hooked to a tractor with TIM, regardless of baler size from our 3 x 3 up to our 4 x 4. It comes already equipped with TIM.”

‘Pretty significant’

Williamson says Agco did field trials using TIM to see what impact it had on bale production. The results demonstrated a significant improvement, she claims.

“We wanted to see the overall improvement in bale consistency when implementing TIM versus not. We looked at having a mid- or lower-level operator and how it would improve overall bale consistency. Does this open up the tractor seat to someone with a lower level of skill?

“A mid-level operator got a 225 per cent overall improvement from bale to bale. He got about a two-inch variability in overall bale length.

“We’re improving flake count and overall bale length. Probably the most significant improvement we got was overall bale weight. In dry straw, we saw an 80 pound overall bale-to-bale improvement by implementing TIM. Eighty lb. in very dry straw is pretty significant.”

The system also has a use on Hesston by Massey Ferguson RB Series round balers. It stops the tractor when the chamber is full and allows the bale to tie and eject. All the operator has to do is start the tractor again.

For producers who already have an 8S or 9S tractor, the TIM software can be downloaded and installed on existing models. LB Series large balers have been equipped with TIM from the factory for the last two model years.

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From Aug. 11-15, I took the boys and Anna into Wilkie for Vacation Bible School. I was teaching the faith section, and little Anna was my helper. The kids all had fun, and I enjoyed getting to share the faith with kids of different backgrounds and knowledge levels.

Gregory started cutting the hay in the Landis ditch on Aug. 12. After Vacation Bible School we would rush home to see what Gregory might need and then head to the garden to see what we could accomplish there.

On Aug. 16, we loaded up the kids and headed to Unity for the Reiniger family reunion. They haven’t had a reunion for more than 20 years, so while there were quite a few familiar faces for me, there were also many I had never met and quite a few that Gregory hadn’t met either.

They calculated that there were 579 descendants of John and Mary Reiniger, but a baby was born that weekend and happily bumped that number up to 580. It was a fun time with plenty of playtime for the kids and a good opportunity to visit with people we don’t see very often. On Aug. 17 we went to mass at Landis and then went back to Unity for brunch and some final visits before everyone went their way again.

On Aug. 18 we were blessed with a visit from “The Aunties.” My friends Michelle and Lacey made their annual trip to Canada to visit their godsons and the rest of the Eppichs. They were only able to stay a few days, but it was an action-packed three days. There was a lot of playing, garden work, crocheting, hiking and even a campfire in the backyard before they headed back on the morning of Aug. 21.

On Aug. 24 we took the opportunity to slow down a bit. After mass and brunch we took the kids out to the pasture to ride and check the cows and pastures. The boys are all getting to be better riders. Joseph is willing to take on new challenges, James is starting to ride on his own and Ian is balanced enough to sit in the saddle on his own while I lead his horse. In one pasture the cows were nowhere to be found, so James and I checked every bush and draw. Finally, we found them along the lake bank enjoying the breeze and the little bit of shade from the trees. We’ve now dubbed that pasture “hidden herd pasture.”

On Aug. 26 we took two balers and worked on the ditches toward Landis. We had a good day but didn’t quite get it all finished. Gregory had a friend come and help him a bit with a tractor the next morning, so we didn’t get out until the afternoon to try to finish baling. By that time, it was too dry and we had to quit and come back the next morning.

The next morning things were working better for the hay, but the balers were not co-operating. Gregory almost lost a tire on his baler. Luckily, he caught it in time to go home for parts and didn’t wreck the tire. Before he could get his baler fixed, my baler lost a chain. Once all the parts and pieces were gathered together, we worked together to get both balers going again. Before long we had all the ditch hay baled for 2025.

We drove the balers home, and then Gregory went to start swathing the organic barley. And just like that, harvest was here! Gregory worked on the barley and then swathed the sainfoin patch. It wasn’t good enough to harvest this year, so I baled it for feed. Gregory then moved right into the oats. He was trying to get the oats in a swath before the wind shelled it out. He’s quite happy with the crop that is there. He has to get the finishing touches done on the combines and the trucks before we can get to combining, but all will come together with time.

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Better long-term solutions are created by looking from both sides of the fence at a problem. These create win-win situations, where both sides of a deal, trade or working relationship do well.

If we use cattle health as an example, feed producers can do things that benefit animal health. A cow or other ruminant is a great way to use up or get some value out of damaged, spoiled or poor-quality feeds. I wish more grain farmers worked with cattle producers.

Straw is the one repetitive area of overlap. Frozen, flooded and drought-damaged crops are the other areas where we can see the potential for good connections between crop producers and cow-calf or feedlot operators.

A long-term relationship is the most desirable, so in the event of a crop failure or extremely hail-damaged crop, there is benefit on either side. In straw production, there must be the trust from the grain producer that the straw, if left as a swath out the back of the combine, is baled up right away and taken off the field and, most importantly, that broken bales are removed and cleaned up.

There is always the argument that a grain producer should be putting that organic matter back onto the land, but if the crop carries too much straw or if the crop is damaged by hail, removing it can be a good thing. Setting a fair price, to avoid fluctuations when straw prices go too high or too low, is also good.

Producers in many cases are composting manure, so the quality and consistency of the fertilizer is good. One must take into account transportation of manure, bales or even moving cows home. I have seen situations where fencing a quarter (either permanent or temporary good electric) very close to home will yield benefits.

For grain land, the field edges and sloughs could get pastured and the stubble grazed. This works extremely well for silaged land, whether cereal or corn silage. We need to see more of these win-win situations between cattle producers and grain producers going forward.

Hail-damaged crops are one example where a producer may need to test for nitrates and make sure there will not likely be grain overloads, to protect the cattle side.

Temporary fences can be set up relatively easily with electric fencing. One must make sure a water supply can be looked after. Like harvested grain land before cattle are turned out, one needs to check for hazards such as spilled grain piles or areas where cattle could get injured, such as open culverts or spots with open excavations.

In sharing and communicating ahead of time, concerns or potential problems are brought up.

Cattlemen must have their cattle vaccinated for common diseases in the area. Clostridial spores are around and if your cattle pick up blackleg from pasturing a neighbour’s grain stubble, that definitely isn’t the neighbour’s fault.

If any cattle do happen to die, they need to be autopsied to find out the cause, and then removed, as grain producers are not set up for that task, nor do they want to be.

If you custom bale, you may want to look into the future with the biodegradable and essentially edible net wraps and twines being developed — and if they cost more, use them and charge for them. They will be a boon in the cattle industry, preventing twine impactions or twine wrapped around just about anything.

Anytime we can have magnets or metal detector-type safeties on our equipment helps everyone. Since cattle are prone to hardware disease and are indiscriminate eaters, anytime we can remove metal from any food source, whether it be ultimately for human or animal, is a good thing.

I just toured a massive french fry plant in Europe. The cull potato peelings are used in cattle feed and any waste finished fries are also eaten by cattle.

In several steps on the assembly line, and especially right at the packaging point, metal detectors will reject product. This is of course the same at meat packing plants as well. These metal detectors are triggered only rarely, but it does happen. What the public should know, contrary to what many people think, is that only even more rarely does the metal found in meat turn out to be a broken needle; usually it is buckshot. The buckshot may have been in the animal for years before it is butchered — and even this is a very rare occurrence.

If in doubt about any of these shared procedures, talk to your local veterinarian, agrologist and/or nutritionist, especially ones that work and live in your local area.

Other things to consider, when trading grazing, include any presence of potentially poisonous weeds. Also, if a dugout has been unused for years, water quality may need to be checked.

Even when it comes to heated grain, or crops with potential mould or mycotoxins, tests can be done ahead of time and the feedstuff diluted. When I think of the risk involved, I put the pregnant cow at the top of the list, then the young calf and lastly the yearling or feedlot animal. The feedlot is where blending of feed can happen more accurately if that’s what’s necessary.

Alternative feeds, such as brewers’ grains, are used more. In the east of Canada, there are numerous cereals and corn husks; out west there are more cull potatoes, sugar beets and everything in-between.

Make sure rations are balanced and these situations can be a win-win for both the cattleman and the food processor. Processors face costs and disposal fees if their product or byproduct can’t be used by livestock. Sometimes it’s even just the cost of hauling it away they are looking for. Here’s to many win-wins between the crop side and livestock side of our industry. May both prosper going forward.

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Many of us have relied on core samples and traditional lab tests for years. Although we have all dealt with some variability between labs, the far greater problem is sampling the crop. With traditional core testing it is difficult to get a sample that represents the entire stack. In addition, it’s common to have significant variation with a given bale. The challenges compound as we unknowingly add unrecognized variations in quality into feed rations, and then witness unexplained fluctuations in the cattle’s production/performance levels.

Today there is a new technology emerging in the arena of relative feed value (RFV) testing for alfalfa hay. Because it provides the vital data for every bale produced, this system will show precisely what relative feed value each bale is bringing to the ration. Hay producers will also find it to be a great marketing tool.

This new method of measuring RFV was developed by Harvest Tec of Hudson, Wisconsin, and tested against lab results of individual bales from eight farms over six states since 2013. Because the system calculates the RFV on every bale as it is produced, the hay can be sorted into grades as it is stacked, and therefore be shipped to the customer with the same consistent RFV, bale for bale.

How RFV works

To use this technology, the hay producer acquires the software program from his equipment dealer, such as AGCO, New Holland and others, and downloads the program into the applicator or moisture-reading system on the baler. The operator then takes a scissor sample just before cutting, or a windrow sample at the time of cutting, and sends this sample to a lab.

At the time of baling, the operator enters the data from the lab sample into the system. The information from the sample is used to calibrate the system, allowing for the quality of the stand including variations in maturity and other factors.

“Grabbing a few windrow samples, sending them into the lab, and entering the results when I start is a lot easier than trying to core representative bales later on,” says Gary McManus, owner of one of the test farms in Lakeview, Oregon.

Then as the operator bales the hay, the system uses the information from the lab sample as a baseline, representing the stand before any leaf shatter. As the baler operates, dual star wheel sensors measure crop moisture readings 96 times every three seconds to determine a moisture level of plus or minus one per cent accuracy. The baler’s scale provides the bale weight to within two per cent accuracy.

Based on the premise that the majority of the nutrient value of alfalfa is in the leaf, and that more density equates to higher leaf-to-stem ratio, the system analyzes the moisture content and bale weight data. It then calculates the dry matter density and the RFV of each bale produced based on the sample previously sent to a lab. The operator can then use this information as it appears on the system’s screen to calculate an average for a field.

A bale-tagging system can also be used to attach a radio-frequency identification tag (RFID) that can be read with a hand-held or stationary scanner from the point of retrieval from the field all the way to the feed ration.

The RFID tagger attaches a vinyl tag containing an RFID chip to the No. 6 twine on the bale; then writes valuable information to the tag before the bale is ejected from the chamber, including: bale moisture, weight, RFV, bale number, the time the bale was made, field location, and more.

System tested

Dr. Allen Young, Utah State University, performed some the first comparative tests during the crop season of 2013. This initial work was performed on farms owned and operated by Utah State University Agricultural Experiment Station. Samples were taken from 546 bales from three fields over three cuttings.

“The system seems to work and appears to be a practical way to get a reasonable approximation of the quality of hay as it comes out of the field…” says Young. (For Young’s full report, visit www.harvesttec.com, Relative Feed Value)

In addition to the preliminary RFV testing to determine the accuracy of the system, Young further sorted alfalfa bales into a feed ration balancing program to determine what effect this would have on projected milk output based on (metabolizable energy) ME and (metabolizable protein) MP.

These diets were formulated to utilize a high-forage diet. It is important to keep in mind that alfalfa grown in the intermountain area is more consistent that that grown in some other regions due to growing conditions.

“However, it is obvious from the scenarios where hay was sorted by CP per cent and RFV that there is variation within a field that can show changes in milk production of about three to four pounds ME milk, or four to six pounds MP milk (depending on the field; in our rations MP was more limiting than ME),” says Young.

Farmers say it works

Over the past two growing seasons additional private studies have been performed on eight farms across six states, culminating in over 3,000 bales tested by the in-field RFV system and compared with core samples sent to conventional laboratories.

These bales were produced under different conditions of temperature, alfalfa varieties, cuttings, irrigated and non-irrigated fields, and made by different makes of balers and bale sizes. The results uniformly demonstrate that the bales tested by the in-field RFV system closely follow the values generated by laboratory tested core samples.

“Our calculated value represents the RFV of the entire bale,” says Jeff Roberts, president of Harvest Tec. “We feel this system is revolutionary in the production of alfalfa. We are adding precision to the testing of hay that was not available before.”

Don Leonard of Brush Colorado, participated in the study in 2014. “The values from the Harvest Tec system on the baler are pretty close to the values coming back from the lab taken with a Colorado Hay Probe — within five points and that is pretty amazing,” says Leonard. “What has surprised me is the difference in RFV from bale to bale. The Harvest Tec system picks that up.”

Gary McManus, of Lakeview, Oregon,says “What is really useful is having the RFV on the screen while I am baling. I thought as moisture increases, RFV would also increase, which I learned is not always the case. I went out one morning and was watching the RFV monitor, thinking ‘this hay should test better than that,’ so I shut down and went back to the house. I came back to that field later that night and sure enough, the RFV jumped 20 points over what it had been that morning.”

To learn more about the RVF testing system visit harvesttec.com.

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Buyers can choose either a 13 or 25 blade pre-cutter to pre-process the hay flowing into the bale chamber. The resulting shorter stems allow more hay to pack into each bale, making later processing of the feed easier or unnecessary.

“Many beef and dairy producers can save time and money by pre-processing silage and other forage crops when baling and put a denser, higher-quality forage in the bunk,” says Jeremy Unruh, product line manager of baling and mowing products, through a company press release. “This is especially true when baling and feeding high-moisture silage.”

The two models in the 900 Series, the 960 and 990 use different platforms and produce 4×5 and 4×6 bales.

If an operator doesn’t want the hay pre-cut, the cutter blade can be retracted for traditional baling. But regardless of how the bales are made, the 900 Series models can push them out the back in less than five seconds.

To get the hay in, these balers use a new pickup design that features five-tooth bars and an inline rotor. The bale chambers are also a new design, using three rolls, an off-set density arm and side sheets that expand or contract as necessary. A full-width hydraulic drop floor allows plugs to be cleared quickly, from the tractor cab.

When it comes to servicing, Unruh says access to moving parts has been improved and the number of grease points has been significantly reduced compared to other designs.

The two 900 Series models are built on an independent frame. They can be purchased with options that include float-ation tires along with heavy-duty chains, bearings and belts. A new net-wrap system is also available. Deere’s new twine-tying system is also built into these balers. And, of course, they offer some new panel styling.

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“Now we’re introducing the Roll-Belt 450 (4×5), 460 (4×6) and 550 (5×5), completing the Roll-Belt family of round balers for season 2015,” says NH’s crop packaging marketing manager, Curt Hoffman. “(They) have a new appearance with the shielding (panels) blending into that family appearance first set with our big balers, in terms of the round styling, and also the large, single, flip-up style shielding to be able to give excellent serviceability to our customers.”

Aside from adding more models, the brand has built a few new features into them. All of which give these balers as much as a 20 per cent bump in capacity over the BR7000s, according to marketing reps. And you get choices when it comes to spec’ing out your own machine.

• More Grainews: Non-stop round baling

“The Roll-Belt balers enable operations to specify the baler that suits their needs,” says Bob Hatz, head of hay and forage product management.

There are three new pickup and feeder options available: the ActiveSweep, SuperFeed and CropCutter, all of which offer updated engineering for 2015. A four-bar pickup, which is standard on the ActiveSweep, gets beefier tine bars and centre shaft, along with a 23 per cent increase in overall diameter. The other two versions get a five-bar pickup as standard equipment. You can opt for a five bar pickup on the ActiveSweep as an option, too.

Click to view slideshow.

“The product line has a SuperSweep four-bar pickup on the lower end that’s proven and been out there a long time,” explains Hoffman. “Then we have a new ActiveSweep pickup, which you saw on the Roll Belt 560 that was launched last year. It’s a rotary feeder that picks the crop up and moves the crop across the top of itself rather than underneath. It replaces our ExtraSweep pickup. Then we have something called SuperFeed.”

“If you look inside the (SuperFeed) baler it has a rotary feeding mechanism with single lobes that pulls the crop off the pickup reel. The CropCutter has a dual lobe rotor much like the SuperFeed that pulls crop in off the pickup reel, cuts it across stationary knives and puts it in the chamber. The big deal with the rotor is it’s 18 inches in diametre now. So it’s much larger than it’s been in the past.”

DropFloor feature

If you’ve hit a thick windrow too hard and plugged the intake on one of these new Roll-Belt models, you won’t spend the next 40 minutes on your knees digging out the slug by hand. Instead, the new DropFloor feature lets you increase the intake space leading into the bale chamber right from the cab, suck in the slug, then reset it before continuing on.

“We have a new feature called a DropFloor,” says Hoffman. “It’s new to us. That allows me from the convenience and safety of the cab to unplug the baler, push the plug into the bale chamber and bale it. Just pull the floor back up and you’re off and running.”

To form bales, the Roll-Belt models use new self-cleaning, seven-inch, seamless rubber belts. The company claims these belts are more stable and less likely to twist when the material flow into the bale chamber is uneven.

The slip clutch on the PTO shaft is a new design, using a ratchet style mechanism that cuts out to prevent system damage rather than the multi-plate slip clutch NH has used on its baler families for several generations. The net wrap feeding system also gets an update.

“The net wrapper and twin wrapper are brand new,” says Hoffman. “We simplified them. The loading rod not only comes out it also comes down, so it’s easier to slide the net roll on the tube. It sits only about a foot away from the spreader rolls and the mechanism, which is awesome. Because if you’re ever going to have a misfeed, it comes when the net comes off the roll and it’s loose. By having only about three linear feet of loose net in there, it makes that wrapper much more reliable. Its the shortest net travel path in the industry.”

The Roll-Belt balers are all ISOBUS compatible, so they will simply plug into a tractor and work with any virtual terminal, but they have improved features when paired with a New Holland IntelliView III or IV monitor. If your tractor isn’t equipped with a virtual terminal, you’ll need to buy one of two dedicated monitors, the Bale Command II or Bale Command Plus II, to run the baler.

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Hillco’s design enables a Deere round baler to be hitched behind a Deere combine, allowing producers to harvest and bale in one pass over the field. It offers significant time and labour savings for those who want to bale straw for livestock or collect residue for biomass energy.

And because the system does a good job of collecting any kernels thrown out the back of the combine along with all the MOG (Material Other than Grain), the straw bales produced by the SPRB have a higher feed value than those rolled up by a tractor-drawn baler. That makes these bales much more than just bedding.

“It’s (catching) a very high percentage of the fines,” says Lenny Hill, Hillco’s owner and president. “From a grain standpoint, even with the machine (combine) running well, there’s a one per cent loss. We’re going to get anywhere from 120 to 150 pounds of grain in every 1,750 pound bale, so there’s actually a lot of value in there.

“Regarding corn, typically a bale is going to weight in the 1,450 pound range, whereas these bales are going to weigh in the 1,750 pound range. The reason for that is we’re collecting all the material coming through the combine. A lot of fine material is going to be collected and packed in there.”

“(As feed) it’s a lot more digestible. When we look at TDN, ordinary corn stocks are on average around 48.5. SPRB bales are all the way up around 87. That would be very similar to a first cutting of grass hay. It’s not only a much more efficient way to collect material, now we have a much higher quality product from a feed standpoint as well. The dirt content is also much, much lower.”

But combines need to run hard and fast, especially here in Western Canada, in order to get crops off in the available weather window. The last thing anyone wants to do is slow one down in order to accommodate the frequent stops a tractor-drawn round baler requires to kick out bales. But Hill says there’s no need to worry about that with this system.

“Everybody thinks if you put a round baler behind a combine you’re going to have stop and eject bales like you do with a tractor,” he explains. “That, obviously, was out. You can’t stop a machine that has to be productive.”

“Instead of having to stop the machine during the eject cycle, what we do is accumulate material in the hopper. This is a non-stop process of residue collection in the field. It’s a fully automated process as well. There was concern that there is enough going on in a combine already, but we’ve really improved the automation of the system to the point where you start harvesting and bales come out the back.”

The way the system achieves that is by collecting material in a hopper after it comes out of the combine. A sensor identifies when there is sufficient material built up to begin feeding the baler. That also ensures the baler is fed across its full width and creates a nice, square shouldered bale. Essentially, that achieves the same result as weaving along windrow to get material into both sides of the pickup in a tractor-drawn baler.

“When we get to a full bale size, the automation stops the feed system and starts the net wrapping,” he adds. “As soon as the net wrapping is done, if we have it in the fully automatic mode, it automatically opens the gate and ejects the bale and closes again. And all that time the material is accumulating in the hopper.”

That also means the baler only operates when required and stops when the hopper needs to refill. That helps minimize power demands and reduces the number of revolutions material makes inside the chamber preventing fines from being pounded out of the bale, ensuring it keeps its quality.

“For example, in corn we’re only running that baler about a third of the time, because we’re accumulating. Then, we feed that all out and stop again until it accumulates more material,” says Hill.

Manoeuvrability

The hitch design of the SPRB allows for very tight headland turns in the field, so there is a minimum effect on the combine’s handling.

“A lot of people are concerned about manoeuvrability, as we were when we first started,” he adds. “But it’s amazing how well those machines move through the field.”

And Hill says the round baler makes the best fit for this type of system. Large square balers were considered, but they were too cumbersome.

“The reason we chose the round baler was really driven by (maintaining) the efficiency of the combine,” says Hill. “The total weight for this system is going to be less than 12,000 pounds, including the baler. If you contrast that to a large square baler, it’s going to weigh 20,000 to 22,000 pounds. A large square baler is going to require typically upwards of 100 horsepower. On a round baler we’re pulling an average of 35 horsepower off the combine.”

The combine doesn’t require any modifications to run the SPRB. There are a couple of bolt-on attachments designed to run off existing shafts, but nothing else. And the system can be disconnected from the combine in about five minutes.

“You can see right away the advantage of a single pass system compared to making two or three passes through the field,” he adds. “It’s a more efficient way of collecting material. The early adopters are the cattle-feeding guys. There’s also potential in the ethanol market. This is the first release of this, nationally. Dealer programs will be going out to dealers in the neighbourhood of late September, early October. That’s when the product will be available to the public.”

Official pricing hasn’t yet been established, but Hill estimates it will cost approximately US$80,000, not including the John Deere baler.

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