Combines corn cobs in yard

May I ask thisIJ Are you renting or own the ground next to these "acreages"IJ If they rent, their landlord will have to be involved and he would be the one to ask if he told the tennants that they are next to agriculture ground, and that should have been stated in their contract. If you rent, your landlord may have to be involved. If these were "developed" areas of like 4 or 5 houses to a development. Ask them to see their covenience that they had signed when the property was developed. I hope there is a statement or a paragraph in there someplace, that states that buy owning and living in the country that they will have to put up with the things involved with agriculture, all things not just the things they like. Also you might want to check with your local authorities. Debris from your combine should be considered natural, unlike garbage that would be tossed in a ditch. Besides what would make the wind not blow residue in their yardIJ How do they deal with that when it happensIJ I assume also that these acreage owners have manicured lawns like a golf courseIJ I would suggest getting the digital camera out and start taking pictures of their property! Plus get some "after harvest" shots. Remind them that their lawn mower most likely is tossing grass_seed in your field, which cost you money to spray to keep it from competing with your crops for water. Also ask them how often are they inconvienced with this each year. Is your spraying of herbicides affecting anything that you are aware of, like lawn, trees, garden, etc. Oh I just remembered where does their septic system drain to if it gets too fullIJ Make a note of that for future reference! I could get to the point here of suggesting ways to make them move. like having semi loads of manure spread on your fields. Poultry and hog are two very pungent ones. If by chance you can get feedlot cattle manure that has the agent added to kill flies even better! You say your doing this to improve your soil structure and helping the enviornment by recycling animal waste! Check with your Natural Resources Distric first to see if there are certain procedures you need to follow before doing this! There are a couple books that have been published for people who move the the country. I will see if I can find the titles and pass them along. We have had to deal with this twice so far. We were fortunate that there were public hearings in the paper that we could attend and put our two cents in. Thus paragraphs were added to the covenences by the county commissioners, thus the seller had to make sure the buyers be made aware of this at the time of sale that the buyers were to have to live with agriculture operations and everything that comes with it. We HAD a problem with such "neighbor" that trespassed with his ATV. I followed the tracks right up to his garage. After explaining to him it was not alright to trespass, I asked him if he had read his covenence before he bought his place. I got a blank stare. I suggested he go back and read it. There is more to the rest of the story, but this is all I can talk about right now. Just a few things to think about. Probably not the answer you were looking for! I did see a guy that put "shields" that looked like the tail of a P-38 lightning that stopped the residue from going any further than his swath. But you would have to be careful of turning around with trees and fences, not to catch the shields on anything. An easier solution is plant 3 or 4 passes with the planter around their place, then when harvesting set the spreader and the airblast to toss the residue to the left and harvest the first two passes (at least) with their place on your right side. Most of the heavier residue will be away from them. the light stuff, well it will blow in the wind anyway at some other time. A privacy fence is a suggestion also. or maybe a 9ft chain link with razor wire on top! I am really thinking that there should be limits put on how much farm ground should be left alone for only agriculture purposes. Or in other words, suburban sprawl should come to a screaching halt. Unless the ground is not fit for farming in the first place. this subject hits a cord with me.

Its a world wide problem, oldstruck! Two examples from down under and these got a lot of publicity. A dairy farmer was sued by a well heeled townie who had just brought a house on a country property. The reason was that the dairy farmer was allowing his cows to plop cow dung over a the very minor back country public road that the townie used for access to the house. The dairy farmer had used this road for years to move his cows from one section of his property to another on a daily basis. The townie did not live there. He had tenants who were quite understanding and had no problems with the cows. A lot of city folk were very upset at being collectively branded as intolerant and ignorant ar**holes who had no knowledge of natural animal behaviour and they made it very clear what they thought of the townie. The townie lost the case and the judge was scathing in his judgement. 2nd case; The Yarra Valley just outside of Melbourne is very picturesque and renown for it's wines and vineyards. A very wealthy couple brought a house overlooking the valley and then sued the vineyard owners to prevent them putting the large acreages of cloth covers over their vineyards which prevent frost and bird damage during certain periods of the year. Their claim was that they had brought in the area to enjoy the view and the vineyard owners had no right to spoil their view by covering their vineyards with cloth covers. Their wealth was considerably reduced by the end of the case which brought howls of derision from all quarters. Unfortunately there are numerous examples where the farmer does suffer on the arrival of ignorant, arrogant, extremely self centred and selfish people who immediately demand that every body conform to their personal requirements. They of course will not accomodate anybody else's needs under any circumstances.

Excellent topic. I rent some ground that has 5 homes on one end row. I take special care to adjust chopper and to empty machine before making corners to help prevent blowing trash into these yards. I even go as far as cleaning the yards up after harvest if I cause a mess. But! I dont get the same treatment, I have ran pumkins, green beans and tomato plants threw the combine where they thought my rented ground was theres to use as a garden plot. One individual had the nerve to get after me for damaging his pumkins. I dont think that situation will ever be a win_win. I did talk to each of them and explain that I will do my best to respect there property but I expect the same in return. good luck.

Thanks R.O.M.! I may have vented a bit! I apologize about that! And it helps to know that it is not just a "localized" issue, but a global issue! Oh I should add to everyone that may glance at this, Remember the saying; "A picture is worth a thousand words" IJ "Video is worth a thousand pictures"! I keep a video camera or digital video camera in reach all the time. And a great tool to around the farm! For keeping track of changes, and inventory, equipment changes or issues and cropping issues. And of course varmits!

happens in the cities too! Cannot fathom people who buy a house next to an existing airport and then complain bitterly about the noise. Nor can I understand the New South Wales government (Australia) allowing people to build houses on some of the Austalia's most productive veggie growing land in western Sydney.

The only experience I have with gleaner was an n6 on a Texas to Montana wheat run 15 yrs ago. I run an axial flow, but I image we encouter the same issue. I assume your primary problem is trash off the spreader. When I open a field I simply drop my speaders and let a windrow. My local dealership came up with a better, and more costly!, fix. They used a cleaning fan variable speed unit to make the speaders variable speed. The can drop spreader speed down to where not even cobs are spread wider than machine. I live in a fairly populated part of the country, not only do I not need to make neighbors mad, I also have to be carefull along roads. The township gripes if I make the road dirty, and I also want to avoid beaning passing cars with cobs! Good luck

advise them when you are to harvest, supply them with safety goggles, gloves and a large sheet of cardboard. Instruct them to walk beside the combine while holding up the board and thus blocking the spreading of cobs onto their yard. Good grief... or then explain to them the value of the fertilizer they contain or- if some in Washington have their way they will have to use them in lieu of toilet paper so look upon it as a heavensend.

Sometimes down in this part of the world you are strongly advised to use the rough end of a pineapple!

I had a manicured lawn and luxury home built alongside our field and that spring while making my first outside round I had to stop. WhyIJ It was littered with empy Vodka bottles....not the usual leaves, grass clipping, kids balls, toys, like others do all the time. Being young and mad I threw every one of those bottles back into the yard hoping they would come out and say something...I was hopping mad. Nobody showed and no bottles ever showed up again. Maybe the other spouse killed somebody when all those out of site bottles were hard to explain in the yard that day. I would tell the cob haters to throw all the cobs back in the field with anger if it makes them feel better....worked for me! Any urban farmers out there can share lots of stories too....I have plenty! Did I tell you about the night our ammonia applicator took a BMW mirror off a car (missed the rest of the car!) in a bridge when trying to stop traffic for us to crossIJ A lawyer to boot! Short version of story.....bought mirror....cannot fight lawyer for cost of mirror...only satisfaction was telling him how lousy of a driver he was...no common sense!

If i'm in a good mood I will run a header width in from the yard first and then take a half of header width and make the pass next to the yard at half engine rpms and make mother happy! Tim