Plants have a waxy coating to protect them from drying out. The necessary gas exchange with the ambient air is regulated only by stomata; microscopic openings in the leaves and stem. Immediately after mowing, these openings close to protect the plant. This means that during drying, water can only escape through the less permeable waxy coating.
The conditioner has the job of breaking up the waxy layer of the mown crop, which brings about two major advantages. The mowed crop dries faster. Less nutrients are lost by reducing the time the crop is left wilting in the field. As a consequence, this also facilitates the release of cell juice in the clamp. This results in faster pH value reduction. What this means is that the silage reaches a stable state more quickly.
For the best working results, a conditioner must be chosen that suits the crop to be mown. For crop with a high grass content, a tine-type conditioner achieves good results. For especially leafy forage, the roller conditioner is recommended.
The V-shaped tines made of hardened steel on the ED tine conditioner accelerate the crop past a conditioning plate with conditioning bars. During this process, the stalks are beaten, rubbing off the wax layer.
The conditioning intensity can be flexibly adapted to the crop by adjusting the distance between the tines and the counter flap. Intensity should always be matched to the most sensitive component in mixed plant forage.
The round, high volume conditioner hood and the adjustable guide vanes enable a loose and airy blanket to be placed.
The RC roller conditioner is especially suitable for alfalfa and clover due to its precision conditioning capabilities.
Two rollers inter-mesh to uniformly crimp the stalks, break up the waxy layer and produce a uniform blanket of forage. The conditioning intensity can be adjusted by changing the gap and pressure between the two rollers.
Thanks to their adjustable swath doors, both conditioner systems can either spread the crop wide or forming a swath, depending on the specific requirements.
Wide placement offers the advantage that because the forage is in an airy loose blanket, the tedder can either be omitted, or drying can be shortened by 2-5 hours with a subsequent tedding process. In the case of hay, the wide placement makes a 2-day harvesting process possible by drying quickly from the start and greatly minimising the weather risk.
"We operate three PÖTTINGER mower combinations with conditioners on our farm. We use roller conditioners for alfalfa and tine conditioners for grass. We particularly like the fact that we can switch the two conditioners between each mower. It is a very quick and easy system that only PÖTTINGER offers. That's a brilliant thing for a business like ours."
Ing. František Toman, Radostín nad Oslavou | Czech Republic