Concave Plates Cut Yield Loss

Concave Plates Cut Yield Loss COMBINES Miscellaneous TNT Cover Plates from Thunderstruck Ag Equipment cut yield loss with a more even distribution of the crop through concaves The plates control where material drops to effectively increase the separating area producing a cleaner sample and greater machine capacity Although Thunderstruck designed and developed the plates the concept was the idea of an Australian farmer “Robert Ruwoldt suggested that if we could control where we were dropping the material onto the separating area we could balance the sieve load and thus better balance the combine ” says Jeremy Matuszewski Thunderstruck Ag Equipment “It took a few different iterations to get it to work; however once we got it we knew we were on to something ” The plates were first developed for use on the company’s Copperhead Concaves for use in single-rotor Deere and IH combines They addressed a common issue of sieve loss and non-grain material due to imbalanced delivery of grain from the concaves onto the sieve sections of the combine The cover plates are now available for Case IH and Deere round bar concaves They’re currently being tested on the JDX9 and Fendt Twin Rotor combines with plans to expand to New Holland A set of plates consists of a solid plate and four plates with multiple opening configurations Which plates are used depends on the harvested crop and its threshing difficulty Closing off the first concave followed by the center drop plate on the second concave with successively more open plates push hard-to-thresh varieties of wheat canola or barley back before dropping onto the sieves The company suggests using the center drop plate on the first concave followed by the successively more open plates for easy-to-thresh corn This prevents overloading the front concave or the screens to either side “Reducing sieve loss is a significant concern in small grains and is considered more important than increased sample quality ” notes Matuszewski “Farmers are used to being docked a few percentage points regardless of how clean their sample is but preventing yield loss is dollars in their pocket ” Prototypes were developed and tested in Australia in 2021 and in Canada and the U S in 2022 The plates were launched into Canada and the U S on a limited basis in 2023 with a full launch in 2024 The suggested retail price is $1 599 CAD $1 150 USD for Deere and $2 699 $1 900 USD for Case IH single rotor combines The TNT Cover Plates earned the company first place in the Innovation Showcase at Manitoba Ag Days early this year Developing and introducing the cover plates was a new experience for the farmer-developed equipment distributor It’s one the company plans to continue “We have a few other products that have patents pending in the prototype and testing phases ” reports Matuszewski Contact: FARM SHOW Followup Thunderstruck Ag Equipment P O Box 492 Winkler Manitoba Canada R6W 4A7 ph 204-325-8051 or toll-free 855-752-5525; www thunderstruckag com

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