Shorty Brown is a long-time friend and associate of Jerry Holder. Holder Farm Sales and Service facilitated the acquisition of the Model 2018 ESCH Folding Hay Tedder for Shorty's farm.
"The ESCH Hay Tedder is a durable workhorse machine, this machine gets the job done better than any others I have used," Shorty declares.
The machine is simple to operate. Back up the tractor, drop the hitch pin, lower the jack, and plug in two hoses. Once the machine is attached to the tractor and the height is set, it will not need to be changed again for that tractor. Many competitor machines require further adjustments to blocks and pins.
Another advantage to the ESCH Hay Tedder is the speed of the tips; it scatters the hay much better than other machines Shorty has used. The ESCH Hay Tedder is a very durable machine; the arms are made out of cutting blades from Bush Hogs, a very tough material. Many competitor’s brand's designs are light and will bend easily. The Esch Hay Tedder arms have a lifetime warranty.
The hydraulic system on the ESCH Hay Tedder is straight forward, using just three cylinders. The number two cylinder is the primary one used most often to raise and lower the arms. Assuming the same tractor is used, further adjustments will not be necessary.
The tires on the ESCH Hay Tedder are larger and have larger bearings. Many of the other machines available come with small 8 inch tires. Additionally, this machine can be pulled with 30-35 horsepower versus 75-80 HP that is required by competitor machines.
Shorty summarizes. "Overall, this is a durable, simple to use, and cost-effective Hay Tedder to scatter and sling the hay. It is a workhorse and does a better job because the tip speed is so much faster."
Joel Holder and I decided to quite our jobs in June of 1983 and go into the pine straw business. We started with an old 330 John Deere Tractor and a conventional hay baler that belonged to our father. As the price of the raw product increased we realized that we needed a smaller bale to compete in the market place. We purchased two old timey hand fed balers that used wire rather than string which was hand tied. Soon we purchased a new baler and had the knotting system modified and the bale chamber altered to make a smaller bale. We were unable to make any marketable bales with that machine (a loss that was difficult to overcome). We heard of a gentleman in Charleston South Carolina who had purchased 3 of the balers made in Germany. He only needed two and gave us the opportunity to purchase the third.
Over the years I have been interested in developing a machine that would match the old German machines that my brother and I had from over 30 years ago. As those machines aged out, there really was not a replacement for them and so I set out to find a manufacturer to recreate an even better solution.
I traveled to Pennsylvania and met Sam Esch many years ago (mid to late 1990's). I was amazed that Sam Esch and his team were building balers that were powered by electric motors. Those looked like a square metal box.
Around his shop at that time, were all kinds of old New Holland Balers that were being redesigned to produce smaller bales. The markets were changing and when someone needed a smaller bale for the type of product they were baling, they brought their balers to Esch Farm machines. By the year of 2016 Esch had set their sights on building a baler from the ground up. They designed and built the Esch 1013 baler just for the production of pine straw.
Esch Farm machines are built to last and their attention to detail and quality was a perfect match for what I was looking to achieve. This machine out-performs and makes the process of baling pine straw more efficient and more uniform than any previous machine I had worked with, and the time savings and quality of the bales is better than any hand-made bale.
An Excerpt reprinted from the NC State Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering News.
Pine Bines Team – 1st Place in the AGCO National Student Design Competition – Ben Cranfill, Ben Cauthen, Alex Greeson, Matthew Parker, and Will Marsh
This team designed and built a pine mulch processing unit. There is currently no method of mechanization in the pine mulch processing industry. Pine straw must be manually separated from pine cones, dirt, sticks or any other trash that is not desirable in the pine straw industry. The Pine Bine separates pine straw from these less desirable materials.
An Excerpt reprinted from the Pilot Newspaper, Southern Pines, NC
Laura Douglass, Staff Writer
Jun 5, 2018
The North Carolina Pine Needle Producers Association (NCPNPA) was founded in 1988, by Terry Bryant and other producers concerned with enhancing professionalism in their industry and increasing the availability of quality pine needles.
In partnership with N.C. State University, several members of the producers association funded an engineering project aimed at mechanizing the most labor-intensive aspect of pine straw production.
Pine straw is typically raked and errant debris is sorted out by hand. Using a primitive cart with a lever, the clean straw is packed into a tight bundle that is tied.
“Historically we had plenty of laborers to bale the straw. But now we endeavoring to get manufacturers to come up with machines to take the place of some of this labor,” Bryant said. Five students in the Agricultural and Environmental Technology and Biological Engineering program designed the Pine Bine, a processing machine that sorts straw to make it easier for baling. Hailed by N.C. State as one of the best projects ever to come out of the program, Ben Cauthen, Ben Cranfill, Alex Greeson, Will Marsh and Matthew Parker, who is a Moore County resident, were presented the Superior Senior Design Award upon graduation in May.
Bryant estimated the machine is capable of reducing 15 percent of field labor, energy that could be redirected to other tasks. His hope is the design will interest big name manufacturers to develop new tools to enable the pine needle industry.
“This,” he said, “could be the start of something big.”
The North Carolina Pine Needle Producers Association was formed in 1988 by a group of producers concerned with enhancing professionalism in their industry and increasing the availability of quality pine needles. The purposes of the association were drafted to maximize the mutual benefits of pine needle production from the landowner to the consumer. For more information visit www.ncpnpa.com
The North Carolina Pine Needle Producers Association’s (NCPNPA) membership was well aware of the problem of cleaning the debris from pine straw before baling. The only option available to them as producers was to clean it by hand. We have to pick up the sticks and pinecones and remove prior to raking or separate the debris from the pile when raked with a tractor.
We decided as an Association to pool the money from individual producers and fund a research project at NC State University. Five graduate students stepped up for the challenge. The piece of equipment seen in the video is the first prototype and has won first place in all competitions as mentioned in the accompanying article.
These five graduate students have started a company and named it Innovative Agricultural Technologies (IAT).
In the demonstration video you can see the pine straw placed on the “Pine Bine” and the clean pine straw emerging on one side and the debris from the other side of the machine. IAT has partnered with a manufacturer to produce the next generation, which should be available soon.
I invite you to stay tuned and we will introduce it as soon as it is available.