Combines Cutting Sunflowers

You do not need any special sieve to harvest sunflowers. Set it according to the book and adjust from there. One thing we have found is to try to keep the combine full. You will have a cleaner grain sample if you can. Everything goes through real easy. I have never tried to harvest sunflowers with a regular head but I think you will need some type of attachment otherwise I think you will lose seeds and heads will drop out of the header. Also, I'm not sure that a reel will work very well either.

John, The trouble with sunflowers is they shatter fairly easily so a cornhead just does not work at all. At least half of the seed would be going through the snapping rolls as the heads hit the plate. Reels, even a pickup reel, does not work very well because a sunflower will have a "hook" in their heads and then they catch on the reel and won't let go. Also, on a regular grain head, the heads will hit the flighting and bounce back out. The best thing to do and probably the cheapest is to remove the reel and use sunflower pans.