# New Holland 644 Straw Baling Problem



## Chipster22 (Jul 18, 2008)

Hello,

I have been having some trouble baling straw with my New Holland 644 round baler. The straw tends to ride up the belts in the front of the machine and pile up on top. The straw also blocks the mechanism that applies the netwrap. I usually wind up using twine for straw since the twine arms do not get blocked.

The baler was purchased used with over 20,000 bales on it so I was wondering if there may be a shield missing or something like that.

Any ideas? Or is this a common problem with round balers? Alfalfa causes no such problems.

Thanks for any help.


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## OhioHay (Jun 4, 2008)

I don't think that there are any shields missing. I think that the problem is that the straw is slippery and it is having trouble starting the bale. Instead of rolling the straw over, it pops up between the belt and the roller. We have seen this before on our NH 640. I would try changing the belt tension some. Also, we have more problems in small windrows of straw verses larger windrows. I don't know if any of this will help, but it's what we have seen.


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## geiselbreth (Feb 21, 2010)

alot of wind with the belts and rollers turning at pto speed try slowing down pto to 450 or so might help


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## sedurbin (May 30, 2009)

Slower RPM and gear up for faster ground speed. Larger windrow is better. If the straw has been chopped and is too short then it can be a real problem. You may also have to loosen the belt pressure to about 1200.

I just baled 55 bales with no problems but the straw was long and we had huge windrows.


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## Toyes Hill Angus (Dec 21, 2010)

Sounds to me like it is typical short straw in a light windrow. The suggestions given above are the only suggestions I can come up with, and that doesn't always work if the straw is brittle, has been rained on and raked a few times, and came out of a rotary combine that has the concaves set tight. 
Just try to keep calm when you bale it, pissed off doesn't help the cause (trust me!!!). Good luck


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Something else that may help, on the 644 you can change the stuffer settings (if it has one) and also mover the axle stubs to improve the feed angle. This is just off the top of my head, I don't remember the reasoning behind it and since I traded my 644 in last year, I don't have a manual to reference.


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