Combines cracking corn kernals

We had a lot of kernel cracking this year. This happened in all brands of combines. I had it happening in both of my R50's and no matter where you adjusted you still cracked it. A neighbor had a lot more of it in a 9650sts. The general consensus was it was because of the drought, it made the corn flinty. The same combines would get into irrigated corn and do a beautiful job. I think you were in a severe drought too so that may be the problem.

If you believe it was machine damage no matter how tender the seeds were I would have to suggest you check a few things. I believe you have an extended concave in one of your machines. If this is the one your useing did you check clearance from back of concave to cylinder barsIJ Would this machine have a standard low narrow wire concave or a jobber high wide wire. I'm a little nervous about double stacked standard helicals in combination with enclosed Sunnybrook for that will cause a very close clearance between bars and helicals. With corn being a large mix of your crops you might consider removing the stacked helical from every other spiral. This should give you the room to roll more whole cobs at slower rpms. Going by the corn experts with the old P1 systems it seems you would want to shrink the diameter that half the seperator cylinder bars are spinning at. Only way I can think you can do that with your P1 Sunnybrook is remove half the bars. Maybe after checking or changeing a couple of these things you will be able to run cylinder slower. Speed of cylinder is number one for damaging kernals. Small number of augers is usually not a problem on Gleaners but I would see how a kernal fits between flighting and trough. If flighting is worn tapered or pinching kernal it good damage a fair number of them tender kernals. Now you make it sound like ground speed is limited by corn head speed. Putting on the standard rigid header drive will run head at same speed as fully slowed down varible header drive. I don't know how Geringhoff does it but maybe you can change some sprockets to get it up to speed!!! I would believe the fuller you run the system the less chance of damaging tender seeds. I wouldn't be tempted to put on any cage covers but maybe would consider some top mount concave filler bars especially if you have the extended concave and wires are low. I hope something hear will help you set up your machine to handle tenderest seeds with style. Nothing wrong with shooting for zero deduct. By the way do they dock you for full weight of damaged kernals when not for human consumptionIJ

no to the extended concave have not had much trouble till now with cracking kernals i was thinking it had to do with the reduced throughput i used to run a black 8row at 5mph in 165bu corn and had no troubles with anything but i think that machine had fillers in concave have low wire concave with every other pulled in this machine also need to run the concave tight in beans to shell everything, but i think variety plays a small part in that i can gear the main shaft faster on the corn head your thoughtsIJIJ august wieser