All harvestable cereal straw cannot be collected every year in regions where wet periods are probable during the baling season, so some Swedish studies have used 'recovery coefficients’ to estimate potential harvestable amounts. Current Swedish recovery coefficients were first formu-lated by researchers in the early 1990s, after discussions with crop advisors, but there are no recent Swedish publications on available baling times and recovery proportions. Therefore, this study evaluated baling operations over a series of years for representative virtual farms and machine systems in four Swedish regions, to determine the available time for baling, baled straw ratio and annual variation in both. The hourly grain moisture content of pre-harvested cereals and swathed straw was estimated using moisture models and real weather data for 22/23 years, and the results were used as input to a model for simulating harvesting and baling operations. Expected available baling time during August and September was estimated to be 39–49%, depending on region, with large annual variation (standard deviation 22%). The average baling coefficient was estimated to be 80– 86%, with 1400 t·year−1 harvestable straw and 15 t·h−1 baling capacity, and the annual variation was also considerable (s.d. 20%). © 2021 by the authors.