Maximzing Corn by seperating the parts?

To my knowledge no manufacturer is building binders. There were both corn and grain binders and looked quite a bit different.

Binders went out of favor as the use of them required a lot of harvest labor.
Once the binder cut and produced a bundle the bundles then had to be picked up by hand and set into a shock with others. These are what you see in old paintings or scenes, teepee fashion.

It is somewhat hard work to gather enough bundles in one spot to build a shock. We used a grain binder on cane and the bundles of green cane are heavy and you are walking through and across the rows of stubble, not fun.

Grain binders often had a bundle carrier attachment that would hold several bundles until an operator tripped a release and left them in a pile. That way you wouldn't have to gather as many from a distance for a shock.

For those building the shocks it was easier to work in pairs to ease the start of the shock. Two bundles were placed butt down in an inverted V then other bundles were propped against them to hold them from falling over and to build the shock.

After some air drying curing time the shocks would be hauled to a near corral stack location or simply hauled in a timely manner and fed directly to the livestock.

Bound feed, in my opinion, is still a much better feed than baled feed. Most old time farmers agree. Labor was the killer as the need to get the bundles up off the ground and into shocks needed to be done rather quickly to prevent spoilage.

Oh, getting parts for a used binder can be tricky these days. Best wishes.

__________________
Two cents worth given, don't expect change.

Fantasy maker, are you feeding the corn?

I have some VERY old feed books that speak of "hogging off" crops. Instead of bringing the feed to the pigs and cows, they fenced the land and turned the animals out to get their own. The big pigs knock over the corn so the little pigs can feed, and of course the cows had no trouble.

Corn was not the only grain hogged off: they also used to hog off peanuts, potatos, and such. Feed a concentrate as needed to balance the diet.

Many of the Amish in Lagrange County Indiana (near Michigan) milk a small herd of cows, and most have a silo. They mostly use a corn binder to cut and bundle the corn stocks, ears and all. The binders they use for this have an elevator on the side that takes each bundle up onto a wagon that is pulled along side by a team of horses. A man on the wagon grabs the bundles and piles them on the flat bed wagon (called a hay rack) From there they are hauled to the silo at the barn. There they have an ensilage chopper/blower. This chops the bundles up fine and blows it up a long pipe over the top into the silo. The ensilage cutter is powered most often by an older medium sized farm tractor that has had the rear tires removed and replaced by a pair of wide steel plates that are welded to the rims were the tires were removed. On these plates, they usualy bolt the rubber tread that they cut off the tires they had removed.
The horses pull the loaded wagon along side the short conveyer that is part of the cutter, and feeds the bundles into it. The man places the bundles upon the conveyer one at a time. That cutter nearly screams as the corn goes through it. Each bundle makes the old tractor on the belt that is powering it open it's govenors and make that straight pipe exhaust beller.
By the time the wagon is empty, another man and wagon is there to take it's place. Inside the silo are at least two men with pitch forks spreading the silage out evenly, and walking continualy to pack it down to eliminate any air that would cause the silage to rot.

I know this is a different scale than ya'll are working on, but we always took and burned the dried corn stalks in our fireplace. Living in Fla., there just weren't that much good fire wood around. Burned with a good, clean flame and left few ashes.

galump

__________________
Formerly Known As Galump!

Galump, You brought up a possibility here that few people have ever considered.
That would be shocking the corn then cutting the larger parts of the stalks off in fireplace lengths when is has dried. These could be tied into bundles and used or sold to campers or anyone who needed kindling to get a fire going quickly. They would be good to cook a meal on the wood range in hot weather. The fire would be quick to start and quick to cool off.
The smaller parts of the stalks could be feed to your big critters during the winter as long as they were keep standing up so they wouldn't rot.

This sounds closer to what I want to do. Now Ive just got top get a look at one of those binders! Im sure the piliing them on the wagon part could be mechanized.

Thanks to all!!!-trying to incorporate these ideas into my situation. It has been appreciated and you're not wasting your time, rest assured. I plant my field corn in early May and hand pick the ears 1st of October. The problem of turning the livestock onto the fields...I plant winter wheat after corn harvested. This gives little time to remove corn stalks, plant wheat and give wheat chance to get started before freeze. Small window-I have to get on tight! NOW- Bare with me, Could I broadcast the wheat by hand up & down corn rows early Sept before I pick the corn in early Oct? I then would either turn the livestock out on the field or brushhog, rake and bale. What do you think?

Diane, I'm not sure what scale you are dealing with. Some on here consider an acre of cornstalks a big field; others think a quarter section (160 acres) field is a small little thing.

If you have no need for the cornstalks, run a disk over them, plant your wheat, & disk very lightly again. The wheat will do fine. Anyhow it does great 'here'.

You can interseed as you suggest. It can get kinda odd sometimes when rain & weather battle you, hard to get the corn out without wrecking the wheat you planted. You have a good idea the years it works; a bad one the years it don't. The fun in farming is trying to guess which year is which. Raking & baling the stalks will get pretty hard on the wheat. But can work.

You should be able to chop the stalks right after harvest, wait a day to dry, rake & bale. Plant. Shouldn't really take too long.

Weather, of course, always throws a wrench in the works.

--->Paul

Diane If the ground isn't loosened up (cultivated) much of the wheat won't sprout. You would get a poor stand. If you can find something to go between the rows that would pull a little one row cultivator you'd be OK.
The old timers cut the corn stalks with the ears still on them in early September before frost. They would carry an arm load at a time to the center of a spot about 10 rows wide with about the same length and start a shock that looked like a teepee. They worked the ground and drilled the wheat right away. After the ground was frozen they retrieved the shocks and at that time removed the ears. Some done this as they needed feed for cattle or horses. The stalks were strung out on the ground in another location.

Diane I just went back and read you earlier posts. Yes a Vermeer 5400 baler will bale corn stalks with no adverse effects. I had one and baled a lot of stalks with it. The baled stalks makeb excellent bedding for beef cattle that spend the winter outside. And they will eat quite a bit of them. Saves on the hay.

Thanks Folks! I am new posting but have read HT for a few months since finding. I watch for the longtimers postings-very insightful and enjoyable. Brief intro-Just me & DH, bought farm in 1992 (150 acres), raise/have 20 Angus cows, 5 sows (Landrace), 1 Jersey milker, handful of Rhode Island Reds, and on rare occasions raise some meat chickens. We raise large home gardens/can&freeze much of everything and try to be as self-sufficient/self-reliant as possible. We eat our own beef/pork. We bale hay for our cattle, but up until 2 years ago, we bought our hog feed from feed store. Also bought ear corn from farmers that we grind/mix to supplement cattle. 2 years ago we started planting 2 acres of field corn to be self-reliant. This is small scale modern farming but BIG Scale for hand doing for us! It sure has made us appreciate those from times past! It has been very rewarding seeing our corn in the crib but it's a gut buster! I'm going to plant again this May-it's not broke me yet! We hand pick the ears which is ok, can handle that, but I've threatened to set fire to those corn stalks-(Just Kidding!) We remove those by hand. We remove those stalks so we could get the wheat planted. We had never heard of baling corn stalks before. This could be my much needed answer!! Since I don't have corn equipment, I am going to try and brushhog off the stalks and bale with our Vermeer. Your all's help and experience has been heeded. Thanks!

Burning them would be preferable to taking them off and dumping them. Not by much, but at least there'd still be SOMETHING there. Definitely try baling or grazing them though.

Around here (Iowa) many farmers still bush hog their stalks in the fall (time and weather permitting). Brady stalk choppers are handy too. Mine handles four 38 inch rows but requires at least 60 hp to operate. If the stalks aren't baled you can bet the reason they were chopped was to prevent insects from over-wintering. If we have a hard winter a lot of the stalks will end up on top of the boundary fences - they move around pretty easily in a good wind.

DianeW, those baled corn stalks will be good for bedding cows, especially when it's muddy out. Gives them a dry place to lay down. Sure they'll nibble on it but it won't make a good meal without some protein.

Thanks Palani/DaleK./Bugstabber-Much appreciated. This thread has been quite helpful to me. Palani-I believe you were the first to mention the round baling which got my wheels turning. Baling these corn stalks will greatly lessen my work. I do plant wheat back on the fields, and do spread manure from livestock annually. I think the cornstalks will be good bedding. Take Care!

It would help if you had your location in your profile. Then someone may be able to give you a better answer to your question.

__________________
Please Put Your Location In Your Profile ... TY

they dont go to waste. Growing corn takes a lot out of the ground. I think it's a good idea to till the stalks back into the ground if you dont need the silage. The stalks alone dont provide much food value anyway

__________________
http://lownfamilymaplesyrup.com/ max@lownfamilymaplesyrup.com
Professional Tool. 1220 Woodmere Ave,Traverse City, MI. 49686. 231-941-8003. http://professionaltool.com/

From her name, Diane WV I assumed she is from West Virginia?

__________________
Recognize the beauty in things, in creation, even when thats difficult to do.
Be loving, show compassion. Create while we're here.
Enjoy this life, be in this life but not be of it.

I'm not really understanding this part of it. The corn stalks rot, and in 6-9 months start adding N,P,K, and tith back to the soil. Removing them as you have done in the past is bad for the soil in the long term. You can remove 1/3 to 1/2 of them - use for bedding, or cattle feed. You can remove all of them, if they do get returned to the soil as animal manure a year or 2 later.

But, why are you removing them from the ground? Wheat doesn't mind the stalks there, it's good cover to hold in moisture & hold down water & wind erosion.

Little disking or other type of light tillage, and good to plant wheat, wonderful seedbed for wheat esp.

Or are you running into wheat disease, that can be carried from cornstalks in some regions?

--->Paul

When we were growing up, we cut the corntops - just above the last (top ear), tied it in bundles, then shocked it to dry in the fields. We then put it in the barn and fed it for fodder all winter.

I would have to think about when we cut them, but they were still very green, the ears were fully formed - because by then we had canned all the corn for winter eating.

We grew quite a bit of corn - as in enough to feed the cattle, hogs and horses through the winter.

It was probably a different kind of corn than what I see grown commercially today. Our corn stalks would be 8 or more feet high, huge stalks, and so green they looked black. They were not planted as closely as I see the commercial ones.