A forage harvesteralso known as a silage harvester, forager or chopperis a

farm implement Agricultural equipment is any kind of machinery used on a farm to help with farming. The best-known example of this kind is the tractor. Tractor and power *Tractor / Two-wheel tractor *Tracked tractor / Caterpillar tractor Soil cultivat ...

that harvests

forage Forage is a plant material (mainly plant leaves and stems) eaten by grazing livestock. Historically, the term ''forage'' has meant only plants eaten by the animals directly as pasture, crop residue, or immature cereal crops, but it is also use ...

plants to make silage.

Silage Silage () is a type of fodder made from green foliage crops which have been preserved by fermentation to the point of acidification. It can be fed to cattle, sheep and other such ruminants (cud-chewing animals). The fermentation and storage ...

grass Poaceae () or Gramineae () is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns a ...

corn Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. The ...

or hay, which has been chopped into small pieces, and compacted together in a

storage silo A silo (from the Greek σιρός – ''siros'', "pit for holding grain") is a structure for storing bulk materials. Silos are used in agriculture to store fermented feed known as silage, not to be confused with a grain bin, which is used ...

, silage bunker, or in silage bags. It is then fermented to provide feed for

livestock Livestock are the domesticated animals raised in an agricultural setting to provide labor and produce diversified products for consumption such as meat, eggs, milk, fur, leather, and wool. The term is sometimes used to refer solely to ani ...

Haylage Silage () is a type of fodder made from green foliage crops which have been preserved by fermentation to the point of acidification. It can be fed to cattle, sheep and other such ruminants (cud-chewing animals). The fermentation and storage pr ...

is a similar process to silage but using grass which has dried.

Uses

Forage harvesters can be implements attached to a

tractor A tractor is an engineering vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort (or torque) at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a trailer or machinery such as that used in agriculture, mining or construction. Most commo ...

, or they can be self-propelled units. In either configuration, they comprise a drum (cutterhead) or a

flywheel A flywheel is a mechanical device which uses the conservation of angular momentum to store rotational energy; a form of kinetic energy proportional to the product of its moment of inertia and the square of its rotational speed. In particular, as ...

with a number of knives fixed to it that chops and blows the silage out of a chute of the harvester into a wagon that is either connected to the harvester or to another vehicle driving alongside. Towed harvesters are either single-chop, double-chop or precision-chop. Most larger machines also have paddle accelerators to increase material speed and improve unloading characteristics. Older machines were operated by cables; later, hydraulics; the newer types are operated by electronics. While towed harvesters continue to be used by small-family farms, the more efficient way of silage-making is with a self-propelled machine with a tractor or truck running along with the forager. Today's largest machines have engines producing up to , are fitted with headers able to cut up to a swath of corn in a single pass, and an output exceeding 400 tons of silage per hour. Once a

wagon A wagon or waggon is a heavy four-wheeled vehicle pulled by draught animals or on occasion by humans, used for transporting goods, commodities, agricultural materials, supplies and sometimes people. Wagons are immediately distinguished from ...

is filled up, the wagon can be detached and taken back to a silo for unloading, and another wagon can be attached. Because corn and grass require different types of cutting equipment, there are different heads for each type of silage, and these heads can be connected and disconnected from the harvester. Grass silage is usually cut prior to harvesting to allow it to wilt, before being harvested from swathes with a collection header (windrow pickup). Maize and whole crop silage are cut directly by the header, using reciprocating knives, disc mowers or large saw-like blades. Kernel processors (KP), modules consisting of two mill rolls with teeth pressed together by powerful springs, are frequently used when harvesting cereal crops like corn and sorghum to crack the kernels of these plant heads. Kernel processors are installed between the cutterhead and accelerator. In most forage harvesters, the KP can be quickly removed and replaced with a grass chute for chopping non-cereal crops. Silage made from

canola Close-up of canola blooms Canola flower Rapeseed oil is one of the oldest known vegetable oils. There are both edible and industrial forms produced from rapeseed, the seed of several cultivars of the plant family Brassicaceae. Historically, ...

oats The oat (''Avena sativa''), sometimes called the common oat, is a species of cereal grain grown for its seed, which is known by the same name (usually in the plural, unlike other cereals and pseudocereals). While oats are suitable for human co ...

wheat Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...

are chopped into pieces (depending on knife, cutterhead, and length of cut transmission configuration), and treated with additives including bacteria, enzymes, mold inhibitors, and preservatives to accelerate the fermentation process. When silage is made of

sorghum ''Sorghum'' () is a genus of about 25 species of flowering plants in the grass family (Poaceae). Some of these species are grown as cereals for human consumption and some in pastures for animals. One species is grown for grain, while many other ...

, additives are not necessary because of the high sugar and starch levels in the plants. Additives, however, are frequently added to corn and sorghum to augment their fermentation. File:Chopping Grass for Silage - geograph.org.uk - 1343401.jpg, A tractor with a trailer running beside a self-propelled

Claas Jaguar Claas Jaguar is a self-propelled forage harvester that is built by German farm machinery company Claas } CLAAS is an agricultural machinery manufacturer based in Harsewinkel, Germany, in the federal state of North Rhine Westphalia. Founde ...

forager File:Forage HarvesterCornHeadJuly2004.jpg, A head for chopping corn File:Forhaustar.jpg, A parked Serigstad tractor-drawn grass forage harvester in

Jæren Jæren is a Districts of Norway, traditional district in Rogaland county, Norway. The other districts in Rogaland are Dalane, Ryfylke, and Haugalandet. Jæren is one of the 15 districts that comprise Western Norway. At about , Jæren is the large ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of ...

File:New Holland FR9000 forage harvester.jpg, New Holland Self-propelled FR9000 Forage Harvester File:Forage bagging machine.JPG, Forage-bagging machine

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Forage Harvester Harvesters Forages Articles containing video clips

Uses

See also

References