# How Much PTO Hp In Front of Your Small Square Baler



## VA Haymaker (Jul 1, 2014)

Just curious - how much PTO hp are you running in front of your small square baler?

Higher hp, any PTO driveline Issues, if you've got a 120 hp tractor in front of a baler that only requires 50 hp, is your tractor exhaust slobbering/wetstacking due to not having a full load?

Considering another tractor, higher hp and more weight for next year. More hp for Discbine duty - especially going up hills and more weight for safely bringing loaded kicker wagons off fields at the tops of our hills without being pushed down them.

Thanks,
Bill


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## BWfarms (Aug 3, 2015)

Nah. You'll be fine just be sure your shear bolts or slip clutches are correctly set.

I saw 2XX MX Magnum with a small Hesston inline pounding straw bales. The reason for it? The AC worked.


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## Hayjosh (Mar 24, 2016)

I'm running 52 PTO hp and it's about perfect, that's with pulling a fully loaded hay wagon behind the baler. I like having a little extra capacity. I've operated my baler on smaller tractors before and while their PTO power fits the rating, it really works them. I think my baler (NH311) is rated at 25 hp, but get a tractor that's in the 30 hp range and it's too light of a tractor to be pulling a baler behind it, the stroke of the plunger will about throw you out of the seat and you hope you're just dropping bales on the ground and not pulling any kind of a wagon behind it.


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## 8350HiTech (Jul 26, 2013)

leeave96 said:


> Just curious - how much PTO hp are you running in front of your small square baler?
> 
> Higher hp, any PTO driveline Issues, if you've got a 120 hp tractor in front of a baler that only requires 50 hp, is your tractor exhaust slobbering/wetstacking due to not having a full load?
> 
> ...


Unless you really love this new tractor (or really don't care for your current tractor that does these tasks), you'll probably not want to mow, bale, and pull the wagons with it. You just won't want to do that much switching when you have another capable tractor. I predict you'd mow with it and pull the wagons but who knows. That said, you can easily use anything that size or larger on a small square without issue.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Used to pull a 276 Hayliner with a 77 Oliver gas. It would do it as long as you didn't have one of the big thrower wagons hooked to it. A super 88 diesel ran it a little better as it had about 5-7 more hp, a 1600 Oliver better yet, about 67 PTO HP. If you wanted to get serious about baling hay the 1855 Oliver went on it, turned up to a 1955 so about 105 HP. Now you could get some hay baled, no down shifting to pull a large almost full wagon up a hill and usually had a lot less issues with the baler as it was a consistent 540RPM on the stub as it never bogged the engine down.


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## carcajou (Jan 28, 2011)

85 to 105 pto hp depending on what tractor is available at the time. MF 124 no issues but i did offset the driveline and that really helps keep things smooth.


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## endrow (Dec 15, 2011)

carcajou said:


> 85 to 105 pto hp depending on what tractor is available at the time. MF 124 no issues but i did offset the driveline and that really helps keep things smooth.


 I like that horsepower range the the best. We have some hills and poor New Holland 326 and an 18-foot Bale wagon the Baler also has a thrower. We Bale a lot with a 70ish horsepower tractor and I thought that often comes to my mind with this question.Is all tractors per horsepower range are not the same. I can take a IH 766 and I can go anywhere any Hill with the wagon full or empty and keep the Baler at full capacity. I can take my 686 International does well on Hills even though I have to be a little careful I give up very little in capacity.. I have a 784 International and that can barely get it done bailing pulling a wagon if you got the tension crank down where the hell is our steep the 784 can't cut the mustard. I also think with the 784 the drawbars not heavy enough for the job. Now the interesting fact is the tractors are all just about the same horsepower. So in my mind when someone says will this much horsepower do the job I often think it depends a lot on the individual tractor


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## Tx Jim (Jun 30, 2014)

IMHO diesel engines that are operated at or near pto speed will not wet stack just because the pto load is less that tractors rated pto HP. Wet stacking is normally caused by idling diesel engine for extended periods of time. Way back in early 70's just for grins I baled hay with my JD BO(14 hp) pulling a JD 214 pto baler on level ground dropping bales on the ground.


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## paoutdoorsman (Apr 23, 2016)

I bale with 90 PTO horsepower pulling kicker balers and 18 foot kicker racks. I have had to put less power in front of that combo before and it will do it, but it works harder, and isn't as safe.


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## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

Been tedding, raking and small square baling with 120 hp tractors this summer, a lot smoother in the rough fields.


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## SpeckleCreekRanch (Mar 21, 2018)

We run a 33 HP John Deere in front of our baler (337 JD). No wagons though, just the quarter turn chute for the pull type picker wagons to come after. We used to hand stack on a hay wagon being pulled behind up to 100 bales and that would get to be a lot of load on the tractor.


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## somedevildawg (Jun 20, 2011)

100 hp....at PTO


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## Widairy (Jan 1, 2016)

Depends on terrain. Around home here uncle Dave used the 77 Oliver with a 336 and kicker racks. Now he uses a 2840 John Deere. In most situation it is fine. The uncle in western Wisconsin uses a 4440 John Deere for little baler and racks. All depends on what you are doing. From what I see at least 75 pto hp when pulling racks behind baler and the weight is more important in most cases than the actual hp.


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## Hayman1 (Jul 6, 2013)

I have pulled my 570NH with thrower with a JD2755, a JD6100D and the current JD6115M. only the 6115 is 4wd. The 2755 had 18 34 rears as does the 6115. the 6100D had 18-38s that were loaded. Liked that wheel combo the best, my 34s started to slide a little with the 570 banging them out on hills with 175 bales pushing down the hill. the 6115 is about 105PTO, the 2755 was around 75-80 and the 6100 was in the low 90s. never had an issue with shearing, it all depends on baling hay ready to bale, meaning cured, and feeding at the right speed for your windrow size.


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## r82230 (Mar 1, 2016)

I'll say it's not just HP, the tractor's weight should also come into play. As a kid, we baled with a Farmall H on a JD14t baler, hauling a wagon behind (hand stacking 100-140 bales). The H is something like 22 HP. We tried the Ford 2000 (32HP IIRC), would get pushed around on any hill (or slope for that matter). The Farmall Super C, would do a better job than the Ford 2000, and it's HP is even less than the Farmall H. But the C was light weight (like the 2000), so stopping could cause something to pucker up on any hill. 

We chained the Farmall H to a Ford 4000, just for grins, it was a draw. Neither tractor could pull the other one, they both just dug holes (and the 4000 had differential lock).

Newer tractor, 85HP+, older tractor maybe 45HP+, would be my vote, in MY area.

Larry


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## 8350HiTech (Jul 26, 2013)

r82230 said:


> I'll say it's not just HP, the tractor's weight should also come into play. As a kid, we baled with a Farmall H on a JD14t baler, hauling a wagon behind (hand stacking 100-140 bales). The H is something like 22 HP. We tried the Ford 2000 (32HP IIRC), would get pushed around on any hill (or slope for that matter). The Farmall Super C, would do a better job than the Ford 2000, and it's HP is even less than the Farmall H. But the C was light weight (like the 2000), so stopping could cause something to pucker up on any hill.
> 
> We chained the Farmall H to a Ford 4000, just for grins, it was a draw. Neither tractor could pull the other one, they both just dug holes (and the 4000 had differential lock).
> 
> ...


That 45-85 sounds like an awfully big gap. Are you basing that on weight or your fond memories of the old iron?


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## Beav (Feb 14, 2016)

baled with a AC WD 40 hp 271 baler with wagon in tow for many years as a kid, then got a D-17 diesel with hi low hand clutch that was a real improvement. Now we bale with a JD 6420 110 hp NH 5070 hayliner and accumulator works well for us. Once you start using more HP it makes it hard to go back to the smaller tractor IMO


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## Wethay (Jul 17, 2015)

I'm running just under 50 hp on John Deere 336. I do small enough pieces that usually a little bit faster baling rate really wouldn't make the day that much shorter it's the turning around and moving fields that eat up the time. I can say though in a bigger field when things are going good I look at those belt grooves in the baler flywheel and dream about putting a 20 horse Honda or something up there just to help out. I have thought it would be fun to run about 100 horse hydrostatic tractor to bale with. I would like to see somebody pull a baler with a hydrostatic tractor and a way to very the horsepower at the PTO. I would be interested in just how much horsepower is required to run the baler full capacity. If you run a higher capacity baler with less than 50 hp you really don't have to worry about going through very many shear pins


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## r82230 (Mar 1, 2016)

8350HiTech said:


> That 45-85 sounds like an awfully big gap. Are you basing that on weight or your fond memories of the old iron?


Mainly weight, plus possible lugging power, I believe older tractors had more iron built in, per HP than the newer ones (could be bean counters at work even, cutting costs). -_- My experience with newer motors, don't seem to have the ability to lug down to the lower RPMs. They are great while in their respective 'power band' (sometimes even with an increase in torque), but once they drop below that area, it seems like a down hill fast. I seem to stall my newer tractors a lot more than the older ones, when doing small things at lower RPMs (1000-1200 RPM). But then again, it could just be the operator. 

An example on weight (I own both, BTW), a Ford 5000 diesel can weigh between 5470# - 9700# (69HP engine), whereas a NH TN70DA comes in weighing between 5020# - 7055# (70HP engine). There can be over an extra ton of weight for the baler to toss about with the 5000. Maybe it's because older tractors were built more for pulling (verse PTO/hydraulic capacities)? Biggest problem I have with the 5000, today is the open station (AC works on the TN, so I'm maybe spoiled some). 

Larry


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## kurt1981 (Apr 18, 2017)

New holland 575. 105 pto hp. Tried 75 pto hp but 105 works much better. Old tractors so dont know true hp of tractors.


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## Gearclash (Nov 25, 2010)

20 years ago we used to run a Deere 328 with an IH 686, 60 odd hp. That was a good match, except the gearing on the 686 left something to be desired.

Agree that old vs new tractors can be a difference. I was thinking about that recently after watching somebody pulling a small baler with a Deere 5085e. I assume that would be 85 engine hp, but that tractor wouldn't have been able to out pull the 686 we used. As for as the lugging ability of the older tractors vs newer, just look at the engine displacement. The newer engines are usually a fair bit smaller, which inevitably means the torque drops off worse at the low end.


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## jr in va (Apr 15, 2015)

I pulled a square baler and 16" flatbed with an 8n Ford.Also pulled one with a 77 hp.

It's about what you have and need.Our fields were mostly flat.Didn't need to ever set the brakes when getting off with the tractor out of gear.Other folks with hills require more weight for any safety.Dad once bought a 2000 Ford that only was being traded in because the owner got pushed down a hill with a load of hay behind it.

I'm sure there have been thousands of bales baled with 100 plus hp tractors because they had it to pull tillage equipment or choppers.

Only reason I need bigger tractor today is my 5X6 round baler and it's bales.Other than that about 60 hp would do all I need.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Gearclash said:


> 20 years ago we used to run a Deere 328 with an IH 686, 60 odd hp. That was a good match, except the gearing on the 686 left something to be desired.
> 
> Agree that old vs new tractors can be a difference. I was thinking about that recently after watching somebody pulling a small baler with a Deere 5085e. I assume that would be 85 engine hp, but that tractor wouldn't have been able to out pull the 686 we used. As for as the lugging ability of the older tractors vs newer, just look at the engine displacement. The newer engines are usually a fair bit smaller, which inevitably means the torque drops off worse at the low end.


Always makes me wonder how catastrophic it's gonna be when some of those turbocharged small engines go. They keep getting more HP out of less and less displacement so the engineering is there, however just hard to beat displacement sometimes.

Friend has a NH something or another with a loader on it, three cylinder turbocharged diesel, gotta keep the RPM's up or it falls flat on it's face, doesn't have near the low end grunt as my JD401 which is a non turbocharged four cylinder diesel. Not sure about his displacement but my 401 is 239 CI.


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## skyrydr2 (Oct 25, 2015)

Well I have run my NH 575 with our jap built 2120 NH and it did just fine no speed demon but good enough for 200 bales in 45 minutes. BUT it was just dropping them on the field. Had there been a wagon behind.. then it would be a different story. My CIH 1594 is 97hp 5.4l 6 cylinder machine that usually does the baling. 
I could move right out if I had an accumulator, not so with a kicker and wagon with stackers in it! I don't want to kill them with bales.


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## Gearclash (Nov 25, 2010)

mlappin said:


> *Always makes me wonder how catastrophic it's gonna be when some of those turbocharged small engines go*. They keep getting more HP out of less and less displacement so the engineering is there, however just hard to beat displacement sometimes.


I dunno. It seems there is always the constant cycle of improvement as specific output increases. Better designs, better metallurgy, better manufacturing practices. I've seen a few spectacular failures of old big displacement engines. Setting in one of my dad's sheds is an old Continental L478, a farm sale purchase that was with some other stuff. Big gas burner from the 60's that had a big hole in the side where a rod stuck a leg out of bed. It had been patched up and run that way. In the early 80's F1 engines were 1.5 liters displacement making upwards of 1400 hp with the help of some pretty crazy turbo boost pressures, and they discovered some weird problems on the way to those power levels. Lot of now old tech that has undoubtedly been drawn on over the years.

I am more concerned about the effects of the emission control equipment on modern engines. Not only is the equipment another source of problems in itself, but I am wondering how much development and production money has been cut from the basic engine itself and diverted to dealing with emissions. If you doubt the cost of emission controls, consider that supposedly the cost of a late model CIH articulated tractor is roughly $70,000 less if it is a tier 2 model going to a country with no emission requirements. In agricultural equipment, these costs for emission controls are really galling to me because they make us pay for the solution to a problem that we cannot possibly contribute to either positively or negatively. It is an urban problem.


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## clowers (Feb 11, 2011)

328 JD is pulled by 85 horse JD or bigger


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## Shetland Sheepdog (Mar 31, 2011)

62 HP Ford pulls a NH 570, with thrower and wagon, up hill and down quite well!
42 HP Ford has pulled a NH 315, with kicker and wagon, on gently rolling fields, quite adequately!


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## Hayjosh (Mar 24, 2016)

Gearclash said:


> I dunno. It seems there is always the constant cycle of improvement as specific output increases. Better designs, better metallurgy, better manufacturing practices.


I couldn't agree more. Henry Ford balked at hydraulic brakes and refused to go to them even while his competitors were touting their benefits. People like to naysay on the new tech (myself included) but I think it's human nature to be uncomfortable with the unknown or unchartered. At the end of the day however, tech improvements have made their way, otherwise we'd still all be driving Model T's.


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## FarmerCline (Oct 12, 2011)

I'm baling with a JD 7510 which is 115 hp at the pto. I much prefer a tractor that might be a little overkill than one that is just big enough.....with properly adjusted slip clutch there will be no driveline issue. On the hills around here the weight of the tractor is just as important as HP to keep from being pushed around.....especially when pulling something behind the baler.

Hayden


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## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

Lot to do with the injection pump setup. Big naturally aspirated engine with pump set for little torque rise falls flat on its face and feels weak. Little turbo engine with agressive fueling setup feels strong.

Look the 7000 series allis Chalmers turbo engines, feel strong - 8000 series changed pump kept same block/turbo and everyone complains how weak they feel.



Gearclash said:


> 20 years ago we used to run a Deere 328 with an IH 686, 60 odd hp. That was a good match, except the gearing on the 686 left something to be desired.
> 
> Agree that old vs new tractors can be a difference. I was thinking about that recently after watching somebody pulling a small baler with a Deere 5085e. I assume that would be 85 engine hp, but that tractor wouldn't have been able to out pull the 686 we used. As for as the lugging ability of the older tractors vs newer, just look at the engine displacement. The newer engines are usually a fair bit smaller, which inevitably means the torque drops off worse at the low end.


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## Ray 54 (Aug 2, 2014)

For getting the most out of a baler nothing like a engine driven baler. You pick the gear in the tractor that at a low idle is the speed you need for the heaviest windrow. In lite hay you start giving it more throttle or to make big turn at the corner. Always fun to have big windrows and keep the baler engine against the governor,as the tractor idles along.

I did run a few 1000 bales for a friend with a JD 6??? and NH 500 pto baler (3 string 16x23 )one season. Was even hay and not as much trouble keeping everything loaded and not turning to close with the drive line as I expected but no better. He didn't think so either because he is back to a NH 515 with a Deutz diesel.

But since the air regulation and low sales no more new balers with a engine for a few years already.

But to the question that started this, with experience and common sense to much is better than not enough. But the experience can have a high price tag to get,and some never have common sense.


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## broadriverhay (Jun 13, 2014)

I have run my NH BC 5070 with a 55hp JD 2510 but prefer baling with a 90 hp JD 6220 and it has AC.


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## hillside hay (Feb 4, 2013)

Seem to be able to safely max out a small square if you double the minimum requirement. Especially with the hills I was on today.


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