New CTF Baling Strategy

Controlled Traffic Farming (CTF) Baling strategy for the farm comes to life

In 2019 we invested in our next step along the Controlled Traffic Farming (CTF) journey.

Soil is our most valuable asset and as farmers we need to be doing everything we can to protect it. Machinery at harvest is one of the most common sources of compaction due to their weight and size. All our harvest equipment including combine, grain chaser, muck spreader and now baler and bale chaser stay in the 12m wheeling’s year after year. By keeping to the tramlines in the fields we are seeing huge soil structure benefits.

Naturally the baler follows the combine anyway but we now can clear the bales from the fields in one operation, never leaving the tramline. We have invested in a new Arcusin bale chaser and a ‘nudge bar’ on the front of the tractor to slide the bales across. The design of the Arcusin means that it picks bales up end on, thus not having to turn the bale sideways and risk breaking strings, all whilst staying in the tramlines!

The system was a great success for harvest 2019 and with a few minor tweaks being made for 2020 we can’t wait to see it in action.