Mechanization of field drying herbs: ways improvement

High-quality grass feeds (hay, haylage, silage) decrease cost price, improve consumer properties and increase competitiveness of cattle products significantly being the main component of agricultural export for the Republic of Belarus. An important issue of grass feed procurement is acceleration of mowed grass drying process. Reduction of drying time or drying process acceleration has a positive effect on feed quality. To achieve this goal, technique of laying the mowed grass on stubble, in rolls or spreading, turning and conditioning is applied. Based on practical experience of application and analysis, the relevance of repeated rolling (reconditioning) of mowed grasses in rolls is substantiated. Design and workflow of new device for such grass rolling has been developed. Its working unit is designed as a sawn-deck or roller flatting apparatus. The kinematic parameters of the upper and lower rollers have been determined experimentally: the rollers rotation ratio should make 1.01 m ωв / ωн m 1.03. Field tests of the device with legumes helped to determined that it accelerates drying by 15–20%, reduces protein loss by 10–15% compared to drying with no treatment. The presented research materials present the development of the theory of grass feeds procurement mechanization. Use of the materials in practice will improve the quality of grass feeds by accelerating the mowed grass drying process.