Another crop year is beginning to come to an end, and it leaves many of us wondering, “What is a normal year anymore?” For many of those in my area, we began the season by planting into extremely dry soils and preparing ourselves to see another year of drought and heat. Then it started to rain. And rain. And rain. Driving the area of my territory west of the Missouri River makes me wonder if I’m in West River South Dakota, or driving down a road in Iowa. The corn and beans were tall and green all year long, and farmers are setting up for a near record year. The crops in the eastern part of my territory started out as possibly some of the best crops in the state. My customers there deserved this as that was arguably the worst hit area for drought in 2012. The cool summer we had (dipping in the 40s in July at night!) made us wish for some warmer weather to help our crop mature. As the old saying goes, “be careful what you wish for.” That saying could not have been truer. We were blasted with heat in mid-August that changed the appearance of our crop in South Eastern South Dakota in a matter of days. Now, cornfields are turning browner by the day, with some even already in a silage pile, and bean fields that are looking to be ready to combine within a week. This has me thinking: Is your combine ready for this year’s harvest?
Sure, all of the farmers I know do the standard ‘back the combine out of the shed, grease it up and clean it off, check all the fluid levels, adjust settings according to your crop, and head out to the field’. All of these steps are important and should not be overlooked, but there is some fine tuning you can do both before the field and in the field to make sure all the hard work, time, effort, and most importantly money you put into this year’s crop makes it all the way to the elevator.
Start with making adjustments according to your combine’s owner’s manual for the crop you are about ready to harvest. Remember, this should only be a starting point. As your combine wears over the years, its ability to do certain things will be hindered and adjustments will need to be made. Make sure you know why you are making adjustments before actually doing them, only make one adjustment at a time and test it before going on to something else.
The combine is not the only thing that needs adjustments. Your header needs to be tuned up just right too, or the grain will not even get to your perfectly adjusted threshing unit. Here are a few tips to remember:
Soybeans
- Make sure your reel speed is about 10% – 25% faster than your ground speed. You can go up to 50% faster if crop is lodged, but a reel speed that is too fast will break pods and cause yield loss.
- Keep reel axle 6-12 inches ahead of cutter bar and as low as possible. Constantly adjust reel height as conditions change to ensure that the reel is controlling the beans without harming them or throwing beans off of the header.
- Pay attention to bean height off of the ground. Make sure the header is as close to the ground as possible, but if beans are off the ground, the header can be raised to prevent ground and header damage.
- For draper heads, set reel speed to lightly place beans on platform. These heads have grown in popularity as of late, so they are worth mentioning. Make sure the draper speed is enough to keep an even flow into the feeder house.
- Complete harvest as quickly as possible. This one is probably the most obvious to farmers, but just a reminder to keep the harvest as close to 13% moisture as possible.
Corn
- Keep gathering chains the same speed as ground speed. If they are too fast they can pull stalks out of the ground and cause ear loss.
- Make snapping roll speed the same as ground speed. If this is adjusted right, the ears should be plucked half to two-thirds the way up the deck plates.
- Pay attention to stalk diameter and ear size. This will come in handy when adjusting deck plates. Too wide of deck plates will allow small ears to be missed. Too narrow will cause butt shelling and excessive trash to enter the head.
- Set flighting clearance. A typical clearance for the auger flighting is about 1 inch about the head pan. Make sure the auger is not carrying over stringy material or damaging the head.
Finally, your adjustments are made and you can see how you did. Start in combining and checking quite often at how you’re doing. This is probably the most important step you can take throughout the ENTIRE growing season, as about 60% of corn losses occur at the combine. The best method I’ve seen so far is one that I learned from my college professor at SDSU, Dr. Gregg Carlson. As he puts it, this method is ‘Incredibly simple!’ You first need to make a Harvest Square. This can be easily done by buying some small diameter PVC pipe and 90 degree elbows. Cut the pieces so they make a frame with an inside diameter of 1 ft x 1 ft. Keep this in the combine cab at all times. As you go throughout the field, take your square out and put it on the ground. It works best to stop the combine and back up 10-15 ft. First, put the square down in the standing crop and count seeds in the square to account for pre-harvest losses. Then, count seeds in the square at a few different points in the first 5 ft to account for header loss. Move back behind the combine to determine threshing loss. This way, you will know where your problem lies and be better suited to fix your problem. In corn, keep an eye out for whole cobs on the ground as well. If they are not falling off prior to the combine, you need to address that problem because those can add up to big losses as well. Keep these points in mind when determining yield loss:
Soybeans
- Approximately 3.5 seeds/sq. ft equals 1 bushel yield loss/acre
Corn
- Approximately 2 seeds/sq. ft equals 1 bushel yield loss/acre
- Approximately 1 cob every 10ft of header width equals 1 bushel yield loss
Remember, these are only approximations. Seed size needs to be taken in account as well, but will not sway the numbers too much. If you use these as rules of thumb you will be very close to a yield loss. Anytime you are determining loss, it is crucial you test at multiple sites throughout the field. One spot can change drastically from the next. You also need to make sure losses are not already in the field before the combine hits it, so you adjust the combine. For those of you with smart phones, there are a few apps on the market now that can help determine yield loss.
At the end of the day, combine losses are inevitable. As long as you can keep them as minimal as possible, you will have a successful harvest. Determine what loss you are okay with before starting to check, and when you hit that or are under that number, get back in the combine and relax for a little while before you check it again to make sure it is still harvesting accurately. If you have questions about harvesting, feel free to give your Producers Hybrids District Sales Manager or Agronomist a call to help you achieve the most out of your crop this fall. From all of us at Producers, we wish you a SAFE and bountiful harvest!
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