Balers – A boon for straw management

India is the second largest agro-based economy with year-round crop cultivation, generates a large amount of agricultural waste, including crop residues. Harvesting of various crop generates large volume of residues both on and off farm. Ministry of New and Renewable Energy estimated that about 500 Mt of crop residues are generated annually. The generation of crop residues is highest in Uttar Pradesh (60 Mt), followed by Punjab (51 Mt) and Maharashtra (46 Mt). Among different crops, cereals generate maximum residues (352 Mt), followed by fibres (66 Mt), oilseeds (29 Mt), pulses (13 Mt) and sugarcane (12 Mt). Cereal crops (rice, wheat, maize, millets) contribute 70%, while rice crop alone contributes 34% to the crop residues. Sugarcane residues consisting of top and leaves generate 12 Mt, i.e., 2% of the crop residues in India. Open field residue burning in most parts of India may be a compulsion to farmers rather choice. Burning of these, residue has become a major environmental problem causing health issues as well as contributing to global warming. Gupta et al., 2004 estimated that the burning 1 ton of stubble emits 199 kg of fly ash, 1460 kg of CO₂, 60 kg of CO, 2 kg of SO₂, and 3 kg of suspended particulate matters. Jain et al., 2014 demonstrated that emissions from stubble burning are mostly CO² accounting for about 91.6% of the total emission. The remaining percentage is composed of 66% of CO, 11% of VOCs, 5% of hydrocarbons, and 2.2% of NOx. The above studies confirmed the environment problem caused by burning of crop residues. After combine harvesting, the residue is left on-farm. The residue should be removed as quickly as possible so that the treatment of the soil preparation can begin thereby establishing next season crop. Traditionally, residue left after harvesting is collected by hand or with tools such as a rake in sacks or in a carrying mat to the areas where it will be used or it is gather one place for burning. This method is laborious and it takes a lot of time to finish collecting all of the straw scattered in a newly harvested area. Mechanization is the solution to quick removal of crop residues form the field. Mechanized collection of straw scattered in the field involves picking up the straw from the field, compressing it into bales, and transporting the bales to the bunds.