In the summer of 2023, Randy and Wendy Clark, owners of RCI Engineering in Mayville, Wis., were asked by John Deere to take over production and improve Deere’s bale accumulator for use on its round balers.

Bale accumulators are designed to pull behind a round baler to collect two or three round bales and group them around a field, reducing the number of stops and trips across a field to pick up bales.

“Randy is a mechanical engineer by trade,” Wendy explains. “We have been an allied John Deere supplier for 19 years.” In 2019, the husband-wife team also became the owners of Ag-Bag.

John Deere has sold bale accumulators since 2017. Based on customer and dealer feedback, the company learned that farmers like the bale accumulator, but they don’t want it to slow down their harvesting process, so improvements were needed to make the unit more efficient.

The Clarks developed a prototype of the bale accumulator in 2023 and started testing it. The redesigned 521R and 421R Bale Accumulators were introduced in September.

“This is the next generation of the product,” Randy says, “and is available through any John Deere dealer.”

More operator control

“We added hydraulic cylinders at the transfer arm, so the operator has more control over the speed and placement when the bales are released,” Wendy explains. “Also, the operator can choose where to position the bales. The new models are faster and more efficient, and can carry up to two bales and place them with a third. There is a manual control or automatic control option.”

Related:RCI Engineering unveils T-Series Ag-Bag models

For the manual control, the operator controls all accumulator functions through a control panel and decides when to drop the bales.

“It’s up to the operator to drop them on the headlands or wherever they want them dropped so they are convenient to pick up,” Wendy says.

The automatic control relies on sensors to collect the bales automatically and hands-free. The cart dumps automatically when the third bale is released. This feature also can drop all bales on the cart automatically with the touch of a button wherever the operator wants, even when moving.

FASTER, EASIER: The 521R Bale Accumulator allows operators to release bales at the headlands of a field for faster and easier pickup.

“Essentially, the goal with bale accumulators is to use less labor and fuel,” Wendy explains. “They also lower soil compaction and potential crop damage, especially when you are baling and accumulating bales in an alfalfa field. Turning can tear up a field.”

The Clarks estimate that the bale accumulator saves the operator over $1 per bale in fuel and labor.

“If we can have one less pass on the soil, that’s a win, too,” Wendy says.