Chopping and Bagging Corn

Most farmers around here pick corn using a conventional corn picker, store it, and then when the market is right, shell it and sell it through the local farmer's co-op. Others may shell it to feed to their own livestock.

The Frankie Dairy Farm, my neighbor here in Kansas has always picked, stored, shelled, and ground corn to feed to the dairy herd. A couple of years ago, however, they brought in a traveling team from Western Kansas with equipment to cut and chop the entire stalk while it was still green including cobs and kernels, and then pack the 1/4"-1/2" pieces into a huge plastic bag.


Every year I've missed this operation, so I asked Curt Frankie to give me a call when the chopping and bagging team arrived. When he called, I rushed down to the farm to witness "Chopping and Bagging Corn" . . . I even had the opportunity to ride in the chopper.

This is a picture of the front "business end" of the chopper which is self-propelled and runs through the corn at about 5-8 MPH.

It sure cuts and chops a lot of corn stalks in a big hurry.





As the chopper drives through the corn, an open top grain truck follows along beside while the chopper chute blows the chopped stalks and ears into the bed of the truck. As you can see, the chopper cuts the stalks about 3"-4" above the ground and leaves the field very clean.

When the truck is full, it pulls out of the way and another truck pulls in beside the chopper.








The full truck takes its load to the farm yard where a large piece of equipment is waiting to put the chopped corn and stalks into a huge plastic bag. The truck backs up to the bagger and activates the conveyor floor of the truck moving the load onto the bagger. The bagger then packs the chopped corn and stalks into the bag, unrolling more of the bag as needed.

Pictured below on the left is the front of the bagger with the truck unloading onto the intake conveyor of the bagger. The picture on the right below is the back of the bagger where the bag is being unrolled and packed with chopped corn and stalks. As the bag is filled, the bagger continues to move forward as it unrolls more of the bag.

















When the operation is complete the bag lays there like a giant worm. This bag contains 450 tons of chopped corn and stalks . . . and it only took the team about 3 1/2 hours to fill this bag.



The contents of the bag will be allowed to ferment for at least 2-3 weeks before it can be fed to cattle. This fermentation process increases the nutritional food value of the chopped corn and stalks. During the Winter months, they will open the end of the bag and use a front end loader to remove some of the feed, then re-seal the bag by placing a pile of dirt on the end of the bag. Every few days they will re-open the bag to remove a few days of feed and then re-seal the bag.

This 450 tons of feed should last the Frankie Dairy Farm for the whole winter. Of course they are also feeding hay and ground feeds to their 70-head dairy herd as well.

This "Chopping and Bagging Corn" operation is indeed a very fascinating and intriguing process. I'm glad I had the opportunity to to witness it up close this year.