Combines How will the 480 handle TOUGH or GREEN strawIJ

[kp]

So many questions! In 2002 we were combining right up until the last snow in December, and we never had to slow down at all. That is one thing I love about this machine, it seems to love the tough conditions. In hot, dry conditions you might as well be harvesting with an 860 massey at the speed you have to go to keep the crop in, but nothing can compare to this in a tough crop. We used to run Gleaners, and any hint of moisture in the air you had to slow down. We have a fair bit of kochia in some areas, and it handles it fine. Word of advice though - don't get plugged. It will kill the machine, but you won't like the 4-6 hrs it takes to get unplugged.... Good luck. Did you get affected by the frost at allIJ looked at our canola yesterday and we are estimating between 15% to 70% yield loss depending on maturity. Wheat looks like it is going to be feed, if there is anything left.

 

[JoeSixPack]

Yeah that was a blast of questions, I will heed your advice on plugging it, looks to be a lot of machine were you can't get your hands! We did get frost here on some areas but was minimal, ours read -.3 and was for a short period. Odd leaf on the tomatos burned. Only prolonging the agony though in this wet weather the crops hardly advance, I would like three more weeks without frost for the flax, not likley. I know some folks south of Melfort with Canola still in bloom, they said they had a -4 the whole field was white when they got up. I think the media is under estimating the damage.

 

[tobaboy]

I agree that they are overlooking the real damage that is out there in the fields. We only got down to -1, but it froze for so long that any canola in low lying areas is done for as is green wheat. Northwest and southwest of us there was much more damage, our oats need a month as does half of our spring wheat. Some places reported -6, but on the wheatboard map it only reported those places as getting down in the 0 to -1 range, thats quite a discrepancy. We even had some winter wheat freeze, what a year! Its raining again and boy is it ever coming down!

 

[big_rig]

I agree with KP. DON'T slug that machine. Keep those cylinders moving, or you will get to know the insides of the machine the hard way. Yes they seem to have an appetite for tough straw. I don't think it will have any trouble eating up our 25-35 bushel wheat crop! And now i sure am glad no beans got planted, frost destroyed bean fields all over far n.w. minnesota, and north dakota

 

[land_Surfer]

In comparison to the competition, dis-lodging impacted material within the lexion's threshing or separation system is a breeze. The operator has the ability to redirect power to the either system to ensure maximum torque for un-plugging. I have plugged my machine twice in some of the nastiest green stem soybeans known to man, and they come right out, as long as you know what you are doing. I am now of the fimr belief that if you do not know how to unplug a lexion, which you will very, very, very infrequently do, you do not know how to operate the machine to begin with. Case in pioint, my neighbor has a 470R lexion. He plugged it in a patch of immature soybeans (i.e. "butter beans") and spent three hours trying to unlug it by trying to pull material from the concave. The slug wasn't actually int he concave, but in the impellar, meaning that power had to be redirected to that area simply through minor mechancial adjustment. Once I showed them this, the machine was unplugged in minutes vs. hours (unaided by there three hour futile attempt). the point I am getting at is that you should never judge a machine by how easy it unplugs. If operated correctly, even in my case (I just know the loop holes) plugging shouldn't be an issue.

 

[big_rig]

You may be right in most cases, but in our case in bluegrass, the rotors were in neutral, and both front cylinders were totally free of straw. We even applied pressure to that impeller (chevron cylinder) drive belt with a hydralic jack to keep it tighter. It just killed the motor or smoked the belt. a 6 foot pry bar couldn't budge it either direction. There may be some other tricks out there, but i don't think they would have worked in this case, because even when we cut an access hole in the back wall of that impellor, it still took a couple hours to dig out the wad string by string. Granted, the low cylinder speed caused it, but it was our 1st day with the machine, and a lesson learned.

 

[kp]

Hey landsurfer - don't take this the wrong way, but how do you get to be such an "expert" on the machine, while even the mechanical staff and other professional "staff" members don't have these tidbitsIJ Case in point - we were plugged for almost 6 hours, even our Cat mechanic could not dislodge the plug. Now, if there are simple measures to unplug, why are they not informing their own mechanics and tech peopleIJ Oh yea, next time we are picking up canola testing 20% moisture in November which is has alot of volunteer green barley straw, i will be sure to give you, the expert farmer, a call to provide me with some valuable advice on how to do my job.