The past decade has seen the birth of high-density balers and today, these have been trumped with the development of ‘ultra’ high density models capable of punching out bales in excess of 800kg (sometimes at a rate of 60-80 bales per hour).

Along with the increased capacity (which thankfully has not added a great deal of complexity to the design of the balers) however, is an increase in the size of the tractor to run the balers, and naturally the price of the machine.

If you want to play in the high-density baler game, you will need a tractor with a minimum power requirement of 186-225kW (250-300hp) and spend $350,000-$400,000 for the pleasure (just for the baler).

The capacity figures of these balers can be quite staggering though, with an overall weight of 11-14 tonnes, flywheels approaching 500kg and in the case of the Krone eight-string HDP BigPack, 54 balls of twine (27 a side).

In this Research Report, Kondinin Group has inspected five large square balers; the CLAAS 5300RC, Krone HDP II BigPack, Kuhn LSB 1290 iD, Massey Ferguson, 2370 Ultra HD and New Holland 1290 Plus (essentially the same baler as the Case IH LB434).

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