A common misconception among newer hay producers is that the baler shapes the bale. In practice, the rake shapes the windrow, and the windrow determines bale quality. A baler receiving a properly formed windrow — the right width, uniform density across its profile, elevated off the ground, and free of soil contamination — produces consistently dense, well-formed bales without operator adjustments. The same baler receiving a poorly formed windrow produces soft bales, uneven density, and leaf loss that accumulates across an entire season’s production. Choosing the right hay rake type for your operation is, therefore, one of the highest-leverage equipment decisions in the hay system.
Why Rake Type Determines Windrow Quality More Than Rake Width
Most producers focus on rake working width when selecting a hay rake — how many meters can it cover per pass? But working width is a throughput variable, not a quality variable. The quality of the windrow the rake produces is determined by the rake’s mechanical working principle: how it gathers the cut crop, lifts it from the ground, and deposits it into the windrow profile.
There are three distinct rake types in common use across U.S. hay operations today, each producing a characteristic windrow profile: the V-rake (finger wheel / rotary wheel rake), the rotary bar rake (side delivery rake), and the horizontal bar rake. Each gathers crop through a different mechanical action, deposits it in a different windrow shape, and performs differently on specific crops and field conditions. Understanding these mechanical differences is the core of any hay rake types selection decision.
V-Rake (Finger Wheel / Rotary Wheel): How It Works
The V-rake, also called a finger wheel rake or rotary wheel rake, uses multiple rotating rake wheels arranged in a V-pattern behind the tractor. Each wheel carries a set of spring-steel tines that project from the wheel rim. As the tractor advances, the wheels rotate through contact with the ground and crop, gathering the cut material and rolling it toward the center point of the V formation. The two rows of wheels funnel the crop from the full working width down into a single central windrow.
The finger wheel rake’s V-arrangement creates a windrow with a distinctive peaked cross-section: material is highest at the center and tapers toward the edges. This peaked profile has two important characteristics. First, the elevated center allows the baler’s pickup header to lift the windrow cleanly from the ground without the pickup dragging soil from the lower portions of a flat-lying swath. Second, the concentrated center mass provides good baler chamber fill on narrow raking passes — important for achieving bale density targets when field yields are moderate.
The primary limitation of the V-rake design is leaf shatter on fragile legumes at higher operating speeds. Because the tines contact the crop with a sweeping, rolling action, alfalfa and clover leaves detach from stems more readily than with gentler raking systems. Operating at reduced speed (8 to 10 km/h vs the 12 to 15 km/h possible on grass) significantly reduces leaf loss on V-raked alfalfa, but some leaf shatter is inherent to the design when raking fully dry material.
Rotary Bar Rake (Side Delivery Rake): How It Works
The rotary bar rake, often called a side delivery rake, uses two to four horizontal rotating bars carrying tine sets. The bars rotate in a tilted, angled orientation relative to the ground, sweeping the cut crop sideways in a conveyor-like action and delivering it into a windrow at the machine’s side. This gentle rolling-and-sweeping action is the least aggressive of the three major rake types in terms of crop manipulation.
The windrow produced by a rotary bar rake is relatively flat in cross-section — less peaked than a V-rake windrow, and wider in proportion to its height. This flat, spread profile is its primary advantage for crops where maximum solar exposure during the final drying hours is important. A flat windrow presents more surface area to sun and air than a peaked windrow at the same total crop volume, which can accelerate final drying to baling moisture in the critical last 4 to 6 hours before the crop is ready.
The trade-off is that the flat windrow profile is less ideal for baler pickup on fields with uneven surface or low crop yield. A thin, flat-lying windrow on an uneven field can result in the baler’s pickup header contacting the soil before the windrow, pulling soil and rock fragments into the intake zone and contaminating the bale with dirt. For this reason, rotary bar rakes are most effective on flat, clean fields with good average yields.
Windrow Cross-Section Comparison: How Profile Shapes Affect Drying and Baler Pickup
The cross-sectional shape of the windrow has direct, measurable effects on drying time and bale density. The following diagram represents the three characteristic windrow profiles produced by each rake type and summarizes the performance implications of each:
Profiles are schematic representations of typical cross-sectional shapes. Actual windrow dimensions depend on yield, speed, and rake width setting.
Horizontal Bar Rake: The Wide-Windrow Advantage at Scale
The horizontal bar rake operates on a fundamentally different principle from both the V-rake and the rotary bar rake. Rather than rotating the crop into a windrow through wheel or bar rotation, horizontal rakes use a series of parallel tine bars — arranged horizontally and driven from a central gearbox — that move the crop across the working width in a sweeping lateral action. The 9LH-12 horizontal hay rake with its 12 m working width is the large-scale version of this design — it can gather the output of two to three mower conditioner passes into a single merged windrow in one rake pass.
The 12 m working width at 10 to 14 km/h produces extremely high daily capacity — at 12 km/h, the 9LH-12 covers approximately 10 ha/h, meaning a full-day raking pass can keep pace with two or three mower conditioners operating simultaneously. This is the primary use case for horizontal rakes on large commercial hay operations: they serve as a merging and windrow-formation step that concentrates multiple mower swaths into a single wide windrow optimized for a high-capacity baler pickup.
그만큼 agricultural gearbox and PTO shaft components driving a 12 m horizontal rake must handle the sustained torque load of sweeping a large crop volume across a wide tine array — this is a continuous-duty PTO application that requires correct driveline angle management to prevent vibration and premature wear at the universal joints.
Leaf Loss by Rake Type: Protecting Alfalfa Quality at the Rake
Leaf loss at the raking stage is the primary quality concern for alfalfa producers. Alfalfa leaves constitute 45 to 60% of the total dry matter but contain 70 to 80% of the protein and energy. A 10% leaf loss at the rake translates to a roughly 7 to 8% reduction in crude protein in the baled sample — the difference between Premium and Grade 1 in many elevator grading systems.
| Rake Type | Typical Leaf Loss on Alfalfa | Leaf Loss on Grass | Key Influence Factor |
|---|---|---|---|
| V-Rake (finger wheel) at 8 km/h | 3–7% | 1–3% | Operating speed is the dominant variable — each 2 km/h increase adds approximately 2% leaf loss |
| V-Rake at 14 km/h (max speed) | 8–15% | 2–5% | High-speed V-raking on fully dry alfalfa is the most leaf-shattering raking scenario |
| Rotary bar rake | 2–5% | 1–2% | Gentler sweeping action makes this the lowest leaf-loss option for premium alfalfa at comparable working speeds |
| Horizontal bar rake | 3–6% | 1–3% | Lateral sweeping action is moderate — more aggressive than rotary bar on some crops, less than V-rake at equivalent speed |
Leaf loss percentages are indicative ranges from university extension research. Actual values vary with crop moisture at raking (dryer crop = more shatter), tine height, and ground speed. Always rake alfalfa above 20% moisture when possible to reduce shatter.
Matching Rake Type to Mower Width and Baler Pickup
The relationship between mower width, rake type, and baler pickup width is a three-way matching problem. Getting this chain right prevents the most common cause of bale density problems: a windrow that is too narrow, too wide, or misaligned for the baler pickup.
The starting point is the baler’s pickup width and chamber width. Most round balers produce a bale equal to their bale chamber width — typically 1.0 to 1.5 m. For maximum bale density, the windrow presented to the baler pickup should be slightly wider than the chamber width — 10 to 15% wider — so the chamber fills completely from edge to edge.
Working backward: if your baler has a 1.25 m chamber and you want the windrow to be 1.35 to 1.45 m wide, your rake must consistently produce a windrow in that width range from whatever mower swath width you are raking. A 3.2 m mower swath raked at standard settings with a V-rake produces approximately a 1.0 to 1.4 m windrow — a workable match for most round balers at typical alfalfa and grass yields.
For high-yield operations or large-chamber balers (above 1.5 m), a single V-rake pass may not produce sufficient windrow density for good bale formation. In these cases, either double-raking (passing the V-rake twice to merge two swaths) or using a larger horizontal rake that concentrates wider mower output is the standard solution. The 9LZD-9.0 V-rake with its 17-wheel configuration and extended working width handles double-raking or wide-swath operations efficiently on large-acreage programs.
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Tell Us Your Acreage, Crop, and Mower Width — We Match the Right Rake Type and Working Width
Whether your operation calls for a V-rake that keeps pace with a single mower conditioner or a wide horizontal rake that merges multiple mower passes into one clean baler windrow, our U.S. team confirms the right model before anything ships. Direct factory pricing, California warehouse, no dealer markup.
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