Agricultural baler with flake prediction for bale length control

A method of operating an agricultural baler, the method comprising:

• compressing crop material in a main bale chamber of the agricultural baler to form bales, the main bale chamber comprising an inlet for receiving a wad of crop material from a pre-compression chamber of the agricultural baler, and an outlet for discharge of compressed crop material into a completed bale formed by a plurality of flakes that are incrementally added together;
• determining a current length of one bale as the bale is being formed in the main bale chamber using a bale length sensor of the agricultural baler;
• and
• estimating a completed length of the bale during formation of the bale using a controller of the agricultural baler based on (i) the current length of the bale being formed and (ii) a predicted thickness of an impending flake to be added to the bale that is based on a thickness of the immediately preceding flake, as measured by the bale length sensor.