Patent ID: 8413414

Claim:
A baling apparatus, comprising: a pickup for picking up crop material from the ground; a baler configured to form crop material into a bale and operate in a plurality of operational modes, including a bale-forming mode and a non-bale-forming mode; an accumulation conveyor configured to receive the crop material from the pickup and accumulate the crop material thereon during the non-bale-forming mode of the baler, the accumulation conveyor extending from the pickup to an inlet of a bale forming chamber; a controller configured to determine an operational mode of the baler and configured to: operate the accumulation conveyor in a feed direction at a first speed during the bale-forming mode of the baler; rewind the accumulation conveyor to an initialized position in response to completion of the bale forming mode so that a point on the conveyor proximate the inlet of the baling chamber at the completion of the bale forming mode is moved proximate the pickup; and operate the accumulation conveyor during a non-bale-forming mode of the baler from the initialized position at a second speed such that the point proximate the pickup is proximate the inlet at start of a new bale-forming mode.