Combines Grain lossIJ

These fields my friend were probably harvested with a GREEN, RED, or Silver machine weren't they!

If you had to go up to Decatur we must not live all that far apart. I live about 30 miles east of Effingham where do you liveIJIJIJ

Hello Il Gleaner. Nice to meet you. We live 25 miles west of Mt. Vernon. I go to Decatur 1 or 2 times a week to ADM(Big Place) for some feed products. Sure is getting wet now. If this rain came in Aug. it sure would of did a lot more good. Thats farming! Good day.

Not sure what color. Not sure way I care (not like a grain shortage in the world). I think what I was wondering about is how much grain loss is aceptable. I think in my New Holland book it says less than 3%. That sure would be a lot of corn if was making 150 to 175bpa. Most of my loss is in the header and I have very little out the back. How much loss is to muchIJ If you have to go slower to save grain but it takes one week longer to get done is worth itIJ

Not if you live around here we got 7inches of rain this past weekend and its raining again tonight(Monday). But I know what you mean. Question for you how many grains in a square foot behind a 30ft head makes a bushelIJ I see on the ground behind my 72 say 2 or 3 usually. You must live near NashvilleIJ Have some relation down that way. later

live about 10 miles SE of Nashville. I went to high school at Nashville (Class of '79). looked at my TR-98 operator's manual loss chart it says in corn 2 seeds_square foot for 1 bu_A loss, beans is 7. Also to check shoe loss take width of the cleaning shoe by 2', count number of seeds, 25' head is 350 seeds, 30' head is 420 seeds in soybeans for one bpa loss. Corn is 8rn 80 seeds, 12rn is 120 seeds for one bpa. I have a chaff spreader so it is hard to see shoe losses. Best way I find is clean off back axle, make one pass, go see how much grain is in the chaff that's on the back axle, make adjustments, try again. I do this a few times a day till I can't find very much grain. I run about 4.5-5 mph in beans and 4-4.5 mph in corn. Is this fast enough or should I take a higher loss and push the combine fasterIJ Way to much time on my hands to be thinking of all this. 8 days without combining in Oct. can do this to a guy!

Have you heard of the Fischers down there. My wife s cousins live down there. There boy Brad played on the basketball team a few years ago when they went to state and I think Dave is the baseball coach. Back to combines I always look on my back axle too. I run a R 72 with a 12-30 corn head and I run 3.5 to 4.0 in corn. I'm not for going fast and giving up more loss,because my limiting factor is getting hauled away now. On that loss do you mean across the 30ft span or just the shoe widthIJIJ Catch you later, John Ferguson

John, Know of coach Fischer, read about him in local paper, my kids are still in grade school. Been by Newton on way to Hidalgo with a load of hairy vetch seed few years ago. Stoped by your Agco and New Holland dealers. NH op manual says to make a wood or metal frame drop screen to check shoe loss. For my combine it would be 24" X 60". Walk beside the combine and throw the drop screen under the center of shoe. let the combine pass over the screen, then separate the chaff and count the number of grains on the screen. I have never done this (way to much dust back there). So the answer is the width of shoe. Nice to see the sun back out, I will get back to beans and maybe get some wheat in the ground(so much for waiting for fly free date(Oct 10),should have planted in Sept.) Done with corn. See you later, Gerald

when you stop or slow down the rotor will empty out trash will hit your sensors and registor high losses nothing to wory about try slowing rotor down in corn to keep it full

The meter is actually dividing the measured loss by the ground speed in an attempt to give an accurate loss per acre. When you slow down, the amount going out the rear does not go up much, but dividing by a smaller number (the ground speed) makes the needle peg to the right. I usually disregard the meter unless the machine has been operating at a constant speed for a while so that the grain and the ground speed are "in sync". This is typical of any process measurement system that has an inherent delay, such as the delay between when the grain enters the header and when the MOG leaves the rear of the machine.