Modified Combine Does Two Jobs At Once

Modified Combine Does Two Jobs At Once COMBINES Miscellaneous 2-6-27 An ingenious Nebraska rancher has merged his corn harvesting and stover harvesting into one operation. By modifying his combine to do two jobs at once. he eliminates a second trip to the field to harvest stover and doesn't leavt' a lot of valuable feed in the field. Karl IIuelile. of Cozad. Neb. has been harvesting this way for many years. I us Deere combine is equipped with a special rote crop head tivith rotary knives that cut the corn plant about a foot above ground and feed the entire plant -- ears. stalks and leaves - into the combine. Shelled corn feeds into the hopper in the conventional way, but the stalks and other plant material go to the rear of the combine where a conveyor moves it out into the waiting arms of a forage chopper that is being pulled alongside. The chopper has a metal sheet that catches all the stover and feeds it into an auger so nothing is lost. "I harvest about 7 tons of stover per acre with this setup, which is two to three times better than with a conventional system." Hueftle told FARM SHOW. The large amount of material going into the combine affects the way the equipment works. Hueftle uses only four rows of a five-row header to cut down on the volume of plant material. I lis 150 hp combine is equipped with a milo or sorghum header. "I don't see why this system wouldn't work with any machine that shells and threshes," he says. "In fact, the new bigger combines that can handle more material should be able to use the full capacity of the sorghum header." While this harvesting operation may seem complicated, it works faster and takes less labor than conventional methods. A harvest crew consists of a combine , operator, one chopper operator, grain trucker and silage trucker. It's a non-stop operation except to dump the grain hopper. There's been almost no mechanical trouble, explains Hueftle. He likes the system because of the time saved and the increased volume and quality of feed he is able to harvest. For more details, contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Karl Hueftle, Cozad, Neb. 69130, (ph 308 784-3251).

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