oldstruck
Guest
First question, I would consider here is what is the wheat like, do you have shriveled seedsIJ is there scab in the wheatIJ I would let those go and look for the heavy good seeds. Depending on your variety of wheat. You could have 13 to 19 seeds per square foot to equal 1 bushel an acre loss. 17 seeds is aproximately 750,000 seeds in a bushel or about 13,000 seeds per lb. First you should walk out in your wheat a ways and check to see if there are any seeds on the ground, before harvesting. Make a note of it per square foot. Then when you are cutting stop the combine and check behind the head, are you loosing any from the headIJ Make a note of that per square foot. Now behind the machine, I will assume you are seeing seeds that are coming off your sieves. Make a count of seeds 1 ft wide all across your 22' cutting width. and divide that number by 22. Subtract any head loss per square foot and subtract any loss in the field before harvesting per square foot. That will give you your square foot loss per acre for your whole cutting width. If you are pretty confident that your only loss is from the sieves, count the seeds in that area, but remember to apply those counts to the whole width of the cutting head. You may count 30 plus seeds in a square foot behind the sieves for let's say a 8 foot wide area but if you divide that (30 x 8 = 240) by 22 you come up with 10.2 seeds per acre loss. (less than 1 bushel per acre, that would be pretty good!) Be aware some of the loss you may presume is coming off the sieves may be also riding the straw out of the machine. That is why it is better to look across your whole cutting width. Also check the uncut area next to what you just cut. Is there any seed that was not there beforeIJ If there is this is seed that got there from your spreaders, if you are running them. I do keep an eye on the light seed loss, as a reference for changes in the day or the field conditions, but I would rather toss the scab or the shriveled seeds on the ground and not take the dock at the elevator. Wheat is at an excellent price. But the elevators are quick to dock for problems in grain these days. I hope this helps! oh I also us a clip board to do this and keep running notes, on my changes I make on the machine, I am using. That way if I make a change I know what helped or did not help me get a better harvest.