Wholecrop

[Orionn4444]

Does anyone have experience in cutting wholecrop with auger mowers? (Krone B950 collect) over a wholecrop header?

The mowers would seem a far more efficient way of harvesting, but worried about the grain losses!

 

[ploughman1963]

We have harvested wholecrop with disc mower with the conditioner removed and then raked carefully and lifted with forage wagons. Remarkably few losses

 

[Orionn4444]

We have harvested wholecrop with disc mower with the conditioner removed and then raked carefully and lifted with forage wagons. Remarkably few losses

I suppose it's just going to be convincing the customer that it would be the way forward!

 

[deleted user 837354]

It can be done.

 

[FarmerFrank88]

We did it when our whole crop header broke but we only had half a field so mowed it with a mower without conditioner and picked it up in the mower lines. We had very few losses however I think raking would cause some issues.

 

[Barmyfarmer]

Isn't there a forager/combine header that can go on the front of a tractor? Macdon?

 

[deleted user 837354]

Isn't there a forager/combine header that can go on the front of a tractor? Macdon?

If you have the adaptors needed. Also from memory a chopper header won't lift as high as a combine so getting it on the transport trolley can be fun and games.

I've seen combine headers used abroad on a variety of makes, no idea what the advantage is. I thought the disc header Claas made was the bees knees and afar better than the old one with the reel and cutterbar made by that company whose name I can't pronounce.

 

[Orionn4444]

We did it when our whole crop header broke but we only had half a field so mowed it with a mower without conditioner and picked it up in the mower lines. We had very few losses however I think raking would cause some issues.

Did you find there were more losses than with the wholecrop header?

 

[oldoaktree]

If you have the adaptors needed. Also from memory a chopper header won't lift as high as a combine so getting it on the transport trolley can be fun and games.

I've seen combine headers used abroad on a variety of makes, no idea what the advantage is. I thought the disc header Claas made was the bees knees and afar better than the old one with the reel and cutterbar made by that company whose name I can't pronounce.

Friends of mine used to put his combine head on his chopper it was a right Faf put adapter plate on then you had to take the wheels off the header trailer for the chopper to pick the header up . After a while he made a plate for the fork lift to lift it off the trailer and put it on the ground and it was handy to move it form field to field .

 

[Chae1]

Did you find there were more losses than with the wholecrop header?

Your new machine would be ideal for grouping it. A fair bit of grain knocked out of head raking it.

We cut ours with a grasshopper. Twin disc it's a bit of a animal. No conditioner.

 

[ProDrive]

Just mower it a bit greener, be fine!

 

[FarmerFrank88]

Did you find there were more losses than with the wholecrop header?

Maybe it was a bit worse as the mower knocked a few ears off but its was not enough to notice a big difference. It was surprising how well the grass header picked it up. The losses came from it going through the mower more than the pick up. It barely left any straw on the ground.

 

[deleted user 837354]

One thing I did see mowed was forage rye, the stuff was ridiculously tall. It was then picked up with the forager and the chopper absolutely hated it. I guess the stems were not being presented to the cylinder the same way.

 

[bez]

Look at it from the customers point of view. If they have already been using a disc header why would they want to risk the losses? Unless your significantly cheaper?

 

[Orionn4444]

Your new machine would be ideal for grouping it. A fair bit of grain knocked out of head raking it.

We cut ours with a grasshopper. Twin disc it's a bit of a animal. No conditioner.

That's another option, was thinking at the moment for the mowers with augers for groupers, shouldn't be any more losses than the disc cut whole crop header, but I would imagine an output/efficiency increase over a header

Will try mowing and merging this year and get a set of mowers on demo against the header and do some sums!

 

[Speedstar]

Does anyone have experience in cutting wholecrop with auger mowers? (Krone B950 collect) over a wholecrop header?

The mowers would seem a far more efficient way of harvesting, but worried about the grain losses!
[/QUOTE
@DGC1 this is the man to ask he has had a few prototype mowers

 

[daveydiesel1]

The best machine to mow wholecrop is a big m with augers but the only way of havin no losses is a wholecrop head on harvester. But if ur wantin to mow it get a big m in to do it

 

[Orionn4444]

The best machine to mow wholecrop is a big m with augers but the only way of havin no losses is a wholecrop head on harvester. But if ur wantin to mow it get a big m in to do it

The krone b950 collects are the same principle as the big m

 

[daveydiesel1]

The krone b950 collects are the same principle as the big m

Sorry didnt realise it was triples u were runnin

 

[Deerefarmer]

Does anyone have experience in cutting wholecrop with auger mowers? (Krone B950 collect) over a wholecrop header?

The mowers would seem a far more efficient way of harvesting, but worried about the grain losses!

So we're not the only ones looking for a more efficient approach?
The problem for us with disc header on the chopper is 1, there not big enough, 2, extra hassles removing it for transport or simply going to the next field...
So we tried a 30 ft swather... ok but slow , and any greenery is plugging it... and it struggled to stay ahead of the 970 claas....
So last year we tried our krone B1000 CV collect... it was the berries.... could stay well ahead of the chopper, did a beautiful job, any henbit or chickweed was a nonissue we thought we had a winner.... until we got later in the season and the guys who were letting it dry down for upright silos were ready for cutting.... fair amount of shatter loss.... had to resort to the swather with much chagrin

So we are still looking for that ultimate solution. Krone has a few auger machines in the states but they are being snapped up as fast as they get here according to our rep, we would really like to try one
Also fyi... one outfit here was using triples with no conditioning to mow it then following with a merger... said the merger actually was causing a lot of shatter loss

Obviously the least amount of handling to get the most amount of crop in the swath is the ultimate goal and still keep harvest costs to a minimum

Let us know how you get along...