Abstract: A mower conditioner includes parallel upper and lower conditioning rolls with the upper roll having opposite ends respectively rotatably mounted in a pair of vertically swingable arms and thereby being moveable toward and away from the lower roll. Associated with each arm is a tensioning mechanism including a lever having its lower end pivotally mounted at a location just below a lower forward location of the upper roll when the latter is in a lowermost initial position. A rearwardly acting biasing element is attached to the upper end of the lever for yieldably urging the latter rearwardly. Mounted to the lever between its upper and lower ends is a cam follower which is located in contact with a cam mounted to the forward end of the roll support arm.

Abstract: The baling chamber of one type of round baler is defined by belts which are trained over rolls connected to a drive. Stones can enter the nip formed between the belts and some of the rolls, e.g., a lower front belt driving roll, and thereby cause poor tracking of the belts. To reduce the problem, a shield device is snap-fit mounted on the roll. The device includes a nip bridging plate an upright portion of which abuts the belt run advancing to the nip and a downwardly sloping lower portion of which bridges the nip. Thus the device covers the nip preventing access to it by the stones, and stones which fall upon it slide down the sloping portion of the plate eventually to find their way harmlessly to the ground.

Abstract: A baler for forming large cylindrical bales of crop material has a baling chamber in which the crop is rolled into a bale by oppositely moving runs of side-by-side belts. A windrow of crop material is fed through an inlet of the baling chamber by a pick-up which lifts the windrow of crop and delivers the same to a feeder fork mechanism which in turn moves the crop into the inlet. Crop enters the baling chamber between a roll, over which the belts are trained, and a growing bale core. In order to reduce plugging of the crop at the inlet, the roll has discs rigidly mounted on it between neighboring belts. These discs each have an outer edge which is approximately sinusoidal in configuration and the peaks of the undulations extend outwardly beyond the thickness of the belts. The effect of the discs is both to grip the crop better and to raise the bale core slightly to provide easier access to the chamber for the crop.