Custom Harvesting Outfit Trusts Case IH For Efficient Hay

Jun 29, 2017

Whether you store your hay, feed it to livestock or sell it, you need the right tools to harvest at peak nutrition. DJ Wassenaar, owner of County Line Custom Farming in Jarvis, Ontario, uses Case IH equipment to improve alfalfa quality for his 150+ customers and reap the benefits of high-efficiency hay.

Here are three tips from Wassenaar for high-efficiency hay.

1. Choose the right tools

Whether you’re due for a midseason upgrade or are already thinking ahead to next year, bolster your operation with an equipment upgrade. Wassenaar uses several Case IH products to give his operation an edge:
LB series large square balers: For Wassenaar, the pickup is what makes the baler — and his LB334 models do not disappoint. “This is by far the best baler I’ve ever run,” said Wassenaar, who enjoys the benefits of less maintenance and reduced downtime. “The pickup ensures quick and consistent crop flow that results in better bales.”
RB5 series round balers: Wide pickups, high-capacity feeding systems and durable belts and rolls consistently build dense, uniform bales — driving down the cost of handling. Heavy-duty pickups provide a clean sweep of crops and uninterrupted feeding. “Overall reliability on our Case IH balers is unbelievable,” Wassenaar said.
Reliable tractors: Wassenaar can count on Maxxum® and Puma® tractors to keep his operation humming. “The Multi-Control Armrest and electrohydraulic joystick on our Puma CVT tractors put key controls right up front. This level of comfort reduces operator fatigue during long nights of bale wrapping and hauling,” Wassenaar said.

2. Tap into new technology

For Wassenaar, using improved technology means getting more done with less fatigue.
ISOBUS Class 3: Automated functionality provides two-way communication between the baler and tractor to optimize packaging, bale density, forage quality and bale consistency.
Advanced Farming Systems (AFS) AccuGuide™ autoguidance: “We recently upgraded to AFS RTK-level autoguidance for our disc mower conditioner,” Wassenaar said. “The improved accuracy and efficiency will pay off not only on our first pass, but every pass thereafter.”

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Video: Wheat Yields in USA and China Threatened by Heat Waves Breaking Enzymes

A new peer reviewed study looks at the generally unrecognized risk of heat waves surpassing the threshold for enzyme damage in wheat.

Most studies that look at crop failure in the main food growing regions (breadbaskets of the planet) look at temperatures and droughts in the historical records to assess present day risk. Since the climate system has changed, these historical based risk analysis studies underestimate the present-day risks.

What this new research study does is generate an ensemble of plausible scenarios for the present climate in terms of temperatures and precipitation, and looks at how many of these plausible scenarios exceed the enzyme-breaking temperature of 32.8 C for wheat, and exceed the high stress yield reducing temperature of 27.8 C for wheat. Also, the study considers the possibility of a compounded failure with heat waves in both regions simultaneously, this greatly reducing global wheat supply and causing severe shortages.

Results show that the likelihood (risk) of wheat crop failure with a one-in-hundred likelihood in 1981 has in today’s climate become increased by 16x in the USA winter wheat crop (to one-in-six) and by 6x in northeast China (to one-in-sixteen).

The risks determined in this new paper are much greater than that obtained in previous work that determines risk by analyzing historical climate patterns.

Clearly, since the climate system is rapidly changing, we cannot assume stationarity and calculate risk probabilities like we did traditionally before.

We are essentially on a new planet, with a new climate regime, and have to understand that everything is different now.