Bottom loading in-line crop baler

Abstract

The baler uses a single stuffer assembly to take crop materials from the center gathering augers of the windrow pickup and sweep such materials upwardly and rearwardly through a loading duct into the baling chamber via an opening in the bottom of the latter. A single set of side-by-side crop engaging forks of the stuffer assembly moves through a generally kidney shaped path of travel that includes extending the forks forward of the deposit zone, plunging the tips of the forks down to the deposit zone between the augers at a point forwardly of the mouth of the duct, sweeping rearwardly and upwardly thereafter through the remainder of the duct along the lower stretch path of fork travel, and the returning downwardly and forwardly along the upper stretch of the path of fork travel to the deposit zone. Such forks are able to extend forward of the deposit zone by positioning the augers, the deposit zone and the mouth of the duct back underneath the axis of rotation of the rotary drive of the forks.