Stationary baler in use on Ashley Dempster’s sorghum crop.
Photo by
Ashley Darling
The only stationary baler in Australia made a visit to Congupna in May to create 250 bales of a mix of white seed sorghum and barley grain with minor weevil contamination to become silage.
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The Vario Master Stationery Baler-Wrapper from Göweil, a manufacturer in Austria, is one of only around 1000 stationary balers worldwide and only around 200 of which are the same variable chamber model, allowing for different sizes of bales.
The baler was hauled up from its Korumburra home in Gippsland, a six-hour drive that started at 4am the previous day.
Arron Daniels Ag Contracting has been hiring out the $740,000 machine since it arrived in January to farmers across Victoria and southern NSW.
Arron Daniels said the machine offered more options to smaller farmers and “anything you can mix together you can put in a bale”.
The benefits of the baler include tighter compaction, which reduces the risk of mould by decreasing the amount of oxygen inside the bale.
Tighter compaction also reduces freight costs.
The ability to mix forage crops with grain in a fast fermenting environment means the stationary baler can reduce waste of contaminated crops.
Avoiding the use of pits also reduces loss and potential for spoilage.
Ashley Dempster saw his weevil contaminated grain mixed into his freshly harvested sorghum crop at a ratio of 20 per cent grain to 80 per cent sorghum when the machine was working on his Congupna property.
Mr Dempster had believed that his crop was failed in January due to a lack of rain and no irrigation because of water costs and allocation.
The crop benefited from rain in February, however, it was damaged by frost about three weeks before harvest.
The stationary baler rescued what remained.
Ashley Dempster's sorghum crop was mixed with 20 per cent weevil contaminated grain, saving the crop from wastage.
Photo by
Ashley Darling
Mr Daniel said the baler used little fuel, and at $25 per tonne plus the cost of plastic, was “reasonably cheap to run”.
It is also able to be hauled on the road, with the trip to and from Congupna costing around $800 in diesel.
If the machine was floated on a truck, the estimate cost could have been up to $3000.
Mr Daniel said many people were unaware of the benefits of this type of baler and “everyone wants to see it before they commit to it”.
