# Yield monitor for hay?



## hay wilson in TX (Jan 28, 2009)

Yield monitor for hay from the California Alfalfa & Forage News December.

http://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=8916

*a grower or PCA can target soil and plant tissue sampling on low yielding areas in order to understand what's limiting yield, or reduce input application on areas of limited profitability that can not be improved by crop or soil management.*

Obviously Someone has approached the problem of a yield monitor for small bales.

HERE in Corn some growers identify areas that have poor yields and good soil analysis. These areas are believed to have yield limiting problems unrelated to fertility. These areas will receive less fertilizers in the future or that ground will be restricted to other crops.
Sounds logical to me.
That ground may have the caliche rock closer to the surface, a sand bar, or other crop growth limiting factor.

If I were really interested I would connect the tying mechanism to a GPS & Computer and mark each spot, the tying mechanism tripped. 
To be exotic the information from the moisture tester could be included. 
To be truly exotic also add the bale weight and strokes per bale.

HERE I can tell how far our Spring Flood events encroach on the field. Where flood water seldom if ever reached is usually where the yield will be to some extent less.

I would suggest the yield monitor is slow in development, proved more difficult to develop, or the marketing office decided there is not enough market to warrant production.


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## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

The folks that make the bale bandit gfc are including geo tagging in their iphone/ipad bale stroke counter app so you can map yeilds. I tried to get a price on the hardware but haven't heard yet.


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## Gearclash (Nov 25, 2010)

Harvest Tech's top line preservative apllication system would be a good starting point for a hay yeild monitor. It already measures baling rate in much smaller increments than whole bales (interpreted as tons per hour) and moisture. The baling rate would need to calculated at weight per area, moisture figured in to give the correct DM weight per area. Then combine this with GPS mapping.


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## hay wilson in TX (Jan 28, 2009)

You are correct it is Harvest Tech's yield monitor that they aer playing with out there. I expect they are using a star wheel to gage how fast the hay is traveling in the bale chamber. The same star wheel woucl be used to measure the moisture content.

There is another aftermarket hay scale that weighs the bale just before it goes off the bale chute or bale turner. These people also include a strokes per bale feature.

All the above including a reasonably accurate, mapping GPS would more than double my original investment in my NH 315 baler.
This cost probably will discourage the marketing of a yield monitor for square balers. 
Now it might be possible for the GPS to note the distance traveled per stroke and use this to compute yield. 
Even just measuring the velocity of the hay through the bale chamber would work. Figure $2000 for a robust mapping GPS and a another $500 for a small detector to measure the hay velocity.


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## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

Distance per stroke won't work, that is just a function of rpm and travel speed. I've be happy with the GFC that just marks every trip of the knotter. That gives a maybe 50 ft error in the reading but close enough for me.


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## rjmoses (Apr 4, 2010)

The Harvestec sm sq acid applicator uses two star wheels on the bottom of the baler to sense moisture. It would be no big deal to put a magnetic position sensor, similar to a camshaft position sensor, on one of the wheels and to a a trip switch to the bale counter to get the number of pulses per bale. Then, manually averaging the weight of a number of bales, get a yield reading. Coupled into a GPS would give yield/acre.

Hardware would be easy. Software a little trickier. But doable.

Ralph


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

slowzuki said:


> The folks that make the bale bandit gfc are including geo tagging in their iphone/ipad bale stroke counter app so you can map yeilds. I tried to get a price on the hardware but haven't heard yet.


Think it's going to be around $400.....don't quote me on that though....


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## Gearclash (Nov 25, 2010)

Harvest Tec does use one of the two moisture sensing star wheels to read the baling rate. Moisture rate is updated every 3 seconds, baling rate maybe every 10 or 15 seconds, this on a baler that drops a bale about every 45 seconds to minute and a half.


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## rjmoses (Apr 4, 2010)

Upon reflection, my NH 570 baler uses a star wheel to trip the tying cycle. Just sensing when the knotters trip would probably be accurate enough. Bale dropped at Position A to bale dropped at Position B and knowing the approximate bale weight would give the yield for that coordinate set.

Ralph


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## haystax (Jul 24, 2010)

I think there are way too many variables to account for to accurately produce a yield map from a baler. Swath width and rake width plus moisture meter error could really make the numbers hard to judge.

The Harvest Tec unit i have on the 4790 is not nearly accurate enough to waste the additional time and money using it as a baseline. A Gazeeka unit with microwave tech - maybe? Still seems like the technology has a long way to go for me.

Spend the money on a grid based soil sample on each field instead...


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## hay wilson in TX (Jan 28, 2009)

*I took some liberties with the quote! *
*


haystax said:



there are way too many variables This is a very true statement.

Click to expand...

*


haystax said:


> *The Harvest Tec unit not nearly accurate enough Here he is referring to the moisture read out. *
> *There are inaccuracies using an on the go moisture tester this is true. This does not preclude using a star wheel moisture sensor to gage the movement of the hay through the bale chamber. The balers star wheel could also be used. Simply attach a magnet to the wheel and count turns. *
> 
> *moisture meter error could really make the numbers hard to judge*
> ...


* Here I have to disagree. Grid soil sampling is a nice theory, but in the past there have been a number of studies that show other wise. In the Journal of Production agriculture they found that for any degree of accuracy they had to use a 72 X 72 ft grid. Oklahoma has a study looking at bermudagrass fertility. They divided a 7 X 70 ft block and pulled soil sample from each block. That is 490 separate soil analysis. They found the pH &c were all over the map. That yields did from each sq ft did varied as much as the soil analysis reports. Ohio did another study much the same but with smaller blocks. A Crop Consultant has sampled using two different diamiater probes. First he used the smaller diamiter one and then used the larger diamiether one down the same hole. there are way too many variables*


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## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

I'm not sure how your samples are supposed to be pulled but here you have to pull about a dozen from each grid and mix them to make an average sample for each grid.


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