Hay Hud Ohio - 7/8/2020 21:54

First , count me in as one who likes Krone, it is so much better than the Agco/Hesston I had before, there is no comparison.
I have a KW 5.52 T four spool model. My peeve is with the way that it leaves "lumps/clumps" among the scattered hay. This happens in heavy first cut, and lighter second cut, tall or short, alfalfa or grass, they all have some degree of clumping. I have adjusted every adjustment possible, wheel height, tooth angle, ground speed, rotor speed and almost every combination of all of the above. Slower ground speed helps a little combined with medium pto speed, dryer hay is better than wetter, but in my case clumps are a big problem. I bale small squares mostly for the horse market, use an accumulator system so I am not inspecting every single bale, and I work in the Humid East, so getting hay uniformly dry is imperative, a few bad bales and my reputation suffers. I usually mow mid day on day one, ted early before dew lift on day two, rake on day three and bale before dew fall on day three (some times it is rake and bale on day four). When I rake I can see the clumps turning up-green/moist. Usually racing a storm moving in so time is critical. For some customers I can use acid, some I cannot. I have tried tedding at different times, too dry and it shatters the hay, two times over and the clumping is 4 times worse, have tried driving perpendicular, angled and straight, no difference. When I say clumping is a problem I mean there will be a handfull per flake, or sometimes a half a flake, that is 20-25% moisture while the rest is under 14%. This is the biggest first world problem I have with hay making right now, I have conquered all the other issues (except the weatherman) in this fickle business. So Krone lovers, do you have this problem and if so what do you do about it?