Do we need a combine?

[Clive]

It's not really a new idea is it. Just going back to how it was done for hundreds if not thousands of years.

I am sure it will happen with robots, they will pick ears or pods to be processed in a factory.

Not quite - they didn’t have stripper headers back then

But thrashing in a yard is nothing new I agree

So how to take this forward ? You would think Shelbourne would be rather keen to develop it ? I really can see it could work

 

[Suffolk Serf]

Not quite - they didn’t have stripper headers back then

But thrashing in a yard is nothing new I agree

So how to take this forward ? You would think Shelbourne would be rather keen to develop it ? I really can see it could work

I think that there is evidence that the Romans harvested by only removing ears, then flailing to thresh.

 

[Simon Chiles]

I think that there is evidence that the Romans harvested by only removing ears, then flailing to thresh.

You really don’t know what you’ve started now. @martian will be gas axing the front off the Skoda and welding on a shaft for a couple of oxen so that he can ride round Groundswell in a toga and wearing a wreath of laurel next.

 

[martian]

You really don’t know what you’ve started now. @martian will be gas axing the front off the Skoda and welding on a shaft for a couple of oxen so that he can ride round Groundswell in a toga and wearing a wreath of laurel next.

How did you know about that? Sounds like our planning committee is leakier than the cabinet...

 

[SilliamWhale]

and you could tow/mount a DD drill on the back of the trailer

And then a sprayer...

 

[SorenIlsoe]

Reading posts about straw chopping/dealing with a mat of straw and, also, watching David Purdey and his team setting up a compaction demonstration for Groundswell, got me thinking that combines are increasingly designed for the benefit of machinery makers rather than farmers. Quarter of a million quid for something that you use a few weeks a year? Bonkers.

So, instead, if you've got a stripper header, why do you need all that thrashing, sieving and winnowing kit trundling along with it? Why not attach the stripper to a big hopper/unloading auger and offload the mush to the grain carts and clean it up at your leisure. You'd harvest a lot of weed seeds and not return them to the land. Ideally you'd have an outdoor chicken system which would add value to the chaff/screenings. You could have a decent cleaning operation at the grain-store which would last the lifetimes of several combines. Harvest would be over in a flash. You'd be much more relaxed about weeds in the crop (what we call companion crops nowadays). You'd have no more combine compaction. You'd be a lot better off.

Where's the catch?

There will come autonome robot combines in the future. The weight of combines has reached the limit!
Instead of one large combine with a driver, there will be 5 or 10 small autonome GPS controlled machines weighing less than 5 ton and doing a simple harvest and cleaning will be at the grain storage. They will be on belts running up and down. Autonome small augers on belts also will bring the grain to the road where the first person will meet it.........

 

[hillman]

Didn't Kidd at one time do a trailed threshing unit with a stripper header , surly the blueprints are around or one of them is swell and would allow for modifications to collect all the chaff , strong fan to blow into a sealed trailer ?

 

[Dockers]

All this talk makes a combine look very simple !! IMO

 

[britt]

A farm near here cuts the straw high, has the sieves open and wind low. The very chaffy crop is then cleaned into and out of store.
This allows much higher output from the combine with less stress on its parts and less grain losses.

 

[snarling bee]

Why cart all that chaff back to the yard and then have to dispose of it later. You could cart it back to the fields and spread it with a muckspreader. Compost it first?

Perhaps it would fit in better when we are all growing 2 crops at the same time, for eg wheat and peas, and then need a lot of fancy gear in the grain store to separate and clean it.

 

[Dockers]

Or, you could spread all the chaff evenly out the back of a decent combine. Too EASY surely !

 

[mikep]

 

[Henarar]

View attachment 808930

looks a good crop

 

[martian]

But thrashing in a yard is nothing new I agree

So how to take this forward ? You would think Shelbourne would be rather keen to develop it ? I really can see it could work

It looks like SR are halfway there:

New Hemp Harvesting Solution in Development | Shelbourne Reynolds

 

[Barleycorn]

As a bonus, the leaves will be as good as hay, so if these get blown somewhere separately you have a valuable feed.

 

[Fred]

It looks like SR are halfway there:

New Hemp Harvesting Solution in Development | Shelbourne Reynolds

Thats it , all you need is an old combine in the yard on level ground , process the crop and put into store , osr & beans might be an issue

 

[Gerbert]

Who was the guy on here with a dual stream new holland combine, that looked to be the biz.

 

[Weare Cham]

Who was the guy on here with a dual stream new holland combine, that looked to be the biz.

@TwoTone ?

 

[martian]

I had a word with someone from Shelborne Reynolds today, I asked him what he thought of the idea. His observation was that you'd be carting a ridiculous amount of material back to your store, he said it would be six times the volume of thrashed grain as you get a lot of leaf and straw debris as well as the whole ears. Six times sounds excessive, but I know from experience that spelt, which we harvest and sell as broken ears with the grain still wrapped up in it, is very bulky. We heaped a big wagon with some last week and it was just shy of 21 tonnes... where we'd have had no trouble getting a payload of 29 tonnes of oats on board.

So to make it work you'd want silage trailers rather than corn carts, a massive tipping area (cattle yard?) and a use for a monster pile of chaff. Conceivably you could use it as animal bedding and recycle it as compost back to the land. Or...back to daydreaming

 

[mikep]

I had a word with someone from Shelborne Reynolds today, I asked him what he thought of the idea. His observation was that you'd be carting a ridiculous amount of material back to your store, he said it would be six times the volume of thrashed grain as you get a lot of leaf and straw debris as well as the whole ears. Six times sounds excessive, but I know from experience that spelt, which we harvest and sell as broken ears with the grain still wrapped up in it, is very bulky. We heaped a big wagon with some last week and it was just shy of 21 tonnes... where we'd have had no trouble getting a payload of 29 tonnes of oats on board.

So to make it work you'd want silage trailers rather than corn carts, a massive tipping area (cattle yard?) and a use for a monster pile of chaff. Conceivably you could use it as animal bedding and recycle it as compost back to the land. Or...back to daydreaming

To get rid of the chaff just compress it and sell at a ridiculous price as a health biscuit. Put Ryvita out of business.