Since last year, the Gschier farm has been very successfully operating a hay drying system from Heutrocknung SR. The trade journal "Neues Land Steiermark" published an extensive article about the system.

We have translated the article from German into English for you. The original text can be found in German as a pdf file at the end of the article.

Efficient hay drying

The Gschier farm has been successfully drying hay since last year with a system from the company HSR Heutrocknung SR.

Over the past year, at Manuela and Thomas Gschier's dairy farm in the Hitzendorf municipality, their 45 Holstein dairy cows have been eating nothing but dried fodder. Thomas Gschier commented: "We became an organic farm back in 1995 and this year we decided to operate without silage." Their reasoning is simple enough: in collaboration with two neighbours, they established their own dairy and 100% of the milk is marketed directly. The prolific operating manager continued: "Our silage-free, organic milk sells very well and we also offer plain yoghurt and a variety of fruit yoghurts." This means that a total of approximately 800,000 litres of milk are processed in their dairy.

Approximately 50 hectares of agricultural area serve as the source for feed. With the exception of a few hectares of cereal crops, this area is managed as grassland which is then dried as feed. Thomas Gschier added: "We were looking at an assortment of drying systems a few years ago and then came across an advertisement in NEUES LAND from the Heutrocknung SR company. The system was installed last year and we are really pleased with it." The dairy's objective was to produce "one-day hay". Grass is generally mown during the afternoon and is then tedded. On the following day, the grass is tedded a second time and then pressed.

The new system provides room for a total of 90 bales of hay, which are dried in intervals (45 bales at a time). The hay bales are dry after around two days of interval ventilation. When in operation, the modern dehumidifier heat pump shows off its strengths since the air has been previously dried.

The system

With a condensation dryer, humidity is extracted from the air and is heated. The advantage of the HSR Heutrocknung SR dehumidifiers is that they do not require an oven. Using recirculated air operation, the temperature increases with each cycle. This gentle method of drying leaves the natural aroma and substances almost completely intact. The innovative control system makes optimum use of energy, which means that electricity is not wasted. This drying technique makes it possible to utilise the short periods of good weather available for harvesting and can also produce Energieheu® [energy hay] in cases of instable weather.

Source: Trade journal "Neues Land", issue from 09 July 2015.