You may know someone who once owned and used a New Holland baler that made small square bales, but required someone to ride on the back, on a permanent seat, near the knotting mechanism. Some of the earliest balers required two people riding on them. Perhaps the baler was powered by an engine mounted on the baler itself instead of a tractor PTO. If you’ve talked to those people or seen pictures of what that was like, you can better appreciate some of the latest innovations in haymaking and forage harvesting introduced recently.

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Those people riding balers decades ago would be shocked to see the New Holland BigBaler 340 High Density large square baler at work. It produces not only big square bales but also bales that are much denser than those produced by similar models.

Likewise, the LB436 baler from Case IH produces high-density, large square bales, packing in much more hay than before. Besides providing one-man haymaking, this baler cuts down on the number of bales produced and number of bales needing storage to deliver the same amount of forage to livestock during the winter.

John Deere takes a major step forward in the hay business, introducing a mower-conditioner model while upgrading all existing models at the same time. Check out the slideshow to see all the exciting new products offered by various companies.