XtraBlatt issue 01-2016

TE
Agricultural contractor
Thorsten Mensching is able to offer his
customers a wide range of bale sizes.
TThe agricultural contractor Mensching from Nienbrügge
in Schaumburger Land developed out of a
farm business. Thorsten Mensching took over the business
from his parents after completing his agricultural
studies and now runs the enterprise with his brother.
Nowadays, he contracts with 35 staff members yearround
in the countryside west of Hanover. Along with
municipal groundwork and forestry tasks, the enterprise
focus lies with classic agricultural jobs such as cereal
combining, slurry spreading and straw harvesting.
Contractor Mensching has been involved in harvesting
straw, and all the associated logistics, for almost 20
years now: “This is mainly carried out for farmers who
require the straw for their own use. These are farms
running horses as well as dairy farms and pig breeding
units”, says Thorsten Mensching. Additionally, straw is
baled and delivered for a large customer, the Raiffeisen
Landbund EG (RLB) in Schaumburger Land. RLB pellets
the straw and sells interregionally. However, there’s
also a regional market for straw determined directly by
the previous year’s straw price and actual supply and
demand. “Now and again, farmers also decide to bale
larger amounts of straw for marketing themselves”,
adds the contractor.
BEING FLEXIBLE
In total, Mensching produces between 40,000 and
50,000 bales per year, mainly big square ones. “We
also do round baling but this represents a smaller proportion
of our work.” With the nine square balers in his
fleet, the contractor offers three different sizes of bales.
“The three machines in 120/90 HDP size from Krone are
mainly underway for the large customer RLB because the
resultant large dimension bales handle best. The around
7,000 to 8,000 bales per year are stored in a hall, and
these measurements help ensure space is best utilized.
Pelleting is via stationary press with the pellets used
for litter by dairy farmers but mainly for broiler barns”,
explains Thorsten Mensching.
The bale measurements 120/70 are favoured by most
of the farms because they are somewhat smaller and
can therefore be moved around with smaller machinery,
meaning easier handling for individual farms. “A specialty
increasingly in demand in the last years is chopped
straw bales. With the fitted pre-chopping system,
Krone Prechop, short chop straw with a theoretical
length of only 21 mm is produced. Chop length is
adjustable via two selectable counterblades. Prechop
also achieves intensive shredding of the straw. This
increases straw absorbency, a characteristic especially
desired for bedding dairy cow cubicles. Additionally,
straw pellets are often used as structure feed ingredient
in ruminant rations.”
The contractor firm Mensching offers as smallest
bale the size 80/90. “This small rectangular size is
favoured by many horse owners and horse pension managers
because it allows more practical handling or easier
working with small front loaders or pallet trolleys in restricted
spaces . However, a big proportion of the harvest
is baled in the large sizes, i.e. 120/90 and 120/70.”
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