Windrowers

Windrowers

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
I was talking the other day Reid Hamre who is the manager of brand marketing at a major agricultural equipment company. We got talking about farming hay and, not surprisingly, he started discussing self-propelled windrowers. "Self-propelled windrowers are dedicated machines. Some people who are not that familiar with farm equipment sometimes mistake them for combines. That's because broadly speaking they have a somewhat similar configuration. You have a cutting head in front, the operator sits in a cab pretty much in the center and overhead of the cutting head. Behind him is an engine compartment, the drive wheels are right behind the cutting head and the steering wheels are at the back of the machine and they can use a cutting head from 10 to 12 feet wide off to 15 or 16 feet wide and they can cut from 5 to 10 miles an hour. That depends on the kind of cutting head and the kind of crop they are in. To cut hay and leave it in a swath to dry or leave it in a wind row to be picked up later when it has dried enough for baling or four silage chopping and it can also be used for grain and a few other applications. The biggest use it is for hay production with some additional use in places where they need to cut small grain or canola crop and let it dry a little bit before they come with the combine and thresh it.
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