Baling twine left on field

[FarmerBlair]

I have a guy cut hay on our property and he gives us a receipt for hay sale that we add to income for farmland tax uses.
I find a lot of poly twine bits all over the field when he is done baling. He did round bales this year, though he has done square bales in the past. I don't like having all this polypropylene plastic twine laying around that does not degrade. Besides that, I am thinking of getting cattle and have heard cattle can eat this poly material and can cause health problems.
Is it normal to leave behind poly twine cutoffs in the field if the baler is working properly? I mean you can find at least a couple of these bits of twine (about 1-3 inches in length) within a 10 foot radius when walking on my fields. So it's very noticeable.

 

[rustred]

what make of baler is that? it dont make sense. once u make and dump a bale then roll up the next one that is quite a distance. you are only
tieing the bale once it is fully rolled. so i dont know what this is all about. plus u dont leave any twine on the ground anyhow. and the
hay is in windrows so follow them , not in circles.

 

[Roger in Iowa]

Normal for a square baler to leave the
bits. Sheep men don't like the plastic
bits in the wool.
Alternative is to use sisal twine. It
rots.

 

[FarmerBlair]

They use New Holland balers, but I don't know the particular models. Here are a few pictures. You can see a couple twine bits a few feet apart in one of the pics; and all the pics were taken within about 15-25 feet of each other.

So I took a walk on a field tonight after reading your response to get check how much of this twine is laying around and follow a windrow. I think I way over-estimated from what I said earlier.... but this was at night with a headlamp. It's not a big deal, but just wondering if it is expected to have an accumulation of this twine debris. It's not going anywhere unless I pick it up.
Thanks

 

[Timmycornpicker]

Normal for any small square baler to leave those little cutoffs.

 

[ptfarmer]

From what I've seen with cattle is the only time twine causes any problems is if one of them eats a really long piece of it (like the amount that's on a round bale). Those pieces in you show are so small I don't think it would hurt them any, even if a cow eats more than one of those pieces.

 

[Brendon-KS]

Most balers use what is referred to as a
Deering style of knotter and these will
produce small pieces each time they tie.
The McCormick style of knotter makes a
loop in the knot that eliminates the loose
pieces. What would be the piece ends up
in the knot. The catch is that this type
of knotter is more difficult to make work
reliably so it has never been as widely
used.

 

[Mike(NEOhio)]

I use sisal but I had my field custom baled in '19, '20 and '21 and he used poly. I had no problems from any of my hay customers, mainly horse
owners.

 

[Tx Jim]

I've never seen or heard of round balers leaving short pieces of twine in the field. I have seen long strings of twine that didn't stay wrapped when round bale was ejected. These long strands must be tied to twine on bale or risk getting twine wrapped around bale moving tractor axles. Best solution is baler that can netwrap instead of twine wrap.

 

[RGMartin]

(quoted from post at 00:03:29 11/23/23) Normal for any small square baler to leave those little cutoffs.

FWIW, A MF/Gehl baler(124, 228 etc.) doesn't leave those little scraps, its knotters work differently.

 

[Brendon-KS]

That is true - those balers use the
McCormick or 'bowtie' style of knotter
that didn't produce the snippings.

 

[showcrop]

NH and JD balers use the same type of knotter and they leave those little cut-off ends. IH and MF knotters are different. Instead of twine wiper wiping the knot off the bill hook the billhook points down and to the rear so that the knot just pulls off the bill hook as more hay is pushed into the chamber.

 

[Destroked 450]

Those are leftovers from prior square baling, round baling doesn t leave those small bits

 

[BarnyardEngineering]

Two of those bits for every bale that goes through the baler. There must be 100's of 1000's of them out in our fields. Most of them stayed on the bale and ended up going through the barn process and getting spread back out on the fields. We didn't have a single gastrointestinal problem that could be attributed to cattle eating bits of plastic twine.

 

[rustred]

i thought u were talking round balers. but even so i have never saw square balers do that around here. john deere nor hew holland. but
leave it to ihc and maybe so. and if they pieces are sitting on the ground a cow wont pick it up anyhow.

 

[BarnyardEngineering]

(quoted from post at 17:33:05 11/23/23) i thought u were talking round balers. but even so i have never saw square balers do that around here. john deere nor hew holland. but
leave it to ihc and maybe so. and if they pieces are sitting on the ground a cow wont pick it up anyhow.

New Holland and John Deere are the ones that do it because they use the Deering style knotter. The IH balers that use the McCormick knotter don't leave any waste bits.

 

[paul]

When picking up round bales I seem to snag a lot of twine and the front wheels run over it, etc. a lot of loops end up
getting pulled off the bales.

Maybe its just me Im the only one, but I frustrate myself by leaving a lot of big round bale twine out in the field.

I often use that white degradable plastic twine that does break down over 2-3 years. Not prefect but it is better than
the permanent plastic stuff.

Paul

 

[Absent Minded Farmer]

Yep, my 47 baler does not leave nubs everywhere. Occasionally, a bit of fuzz will come off the knotters.

Some have said the blue poly is the issue, others claim it's a trait of all big squares. The CaseIH one that the neighbor has won't leave any, that I
do know. He also doesn't use the blue poly. So....?

Mike

 

[J.Wondergem]

My IHC 46 never left any on the ground, but I never ran plastic thru it, just in the Hesston round baler and that never left any.

 

[Northvale PA]

I use plastic for straw and sisal for hay. The cut pieces tend to go into the wagons on top the bales. I
normally use the thinner 9600 plastic but this year I bought a box of 7200 Blue plastic which is about
twice as thick. Since the thinner plastic never broke, I am going back to that which will cut the scrap
issue by half. I agree I dont like the scraps and will pick them out when I see them but no way I can get
many. The entire twine or netwrap thing is a necessary downside of bales. The sisal cost more but I
wont use plastic on hay personally.