Harvesting In South Australia

[RocksnRoses]

The Agricultural Forum has been quiet lately, all you farmers must be busy working. Harvest is in in full swing here in South Australia following a year full of promise and ending in absolute disaster. The year started brilliantly, then the rain stopped at the end of August and the crops just died. We have only had nine and a half inches of rain for the year here, and our average is sixteen inches. The better land is yielding not too bad but the sample is very poor. Some experts are predicting that up to 25% of farmers in this state could leave the land next year, because of dry seasons, falling prices and increased costs and I am a bit inclined to agree with them.
Here are a few pics of our neighbours reaping windrowed barley on what used to be our family farm.

Rn'R.

 

[Squizzy246B]

Its a jolly green frog in the paddock!

Its very hit & miss over here RnR. Some areas are gunna go Ok, but others are a total disaster. We had above avge May June July Aug then not a bleedin drop for Sept. When we got rain in Oct the mould grew in the heads and then we got frost....bewdy!

 

[RocksnRoses]

I suppose I will have to find a red one to keep it even, Sqizzy.:stirthepot

I think the whole country is a bit hit and miss, someone was telling me the other day, down around Esperance is reasonably good.

Rn'R.

 

[Squizzy246B]

oh you know Deere to own...Deere to operate

Yes, most of the Great Southern is going to be good......but its real mixed bag when you head north. Some of the traditional "16 bag" areas are going to be well down and marginal areas are not too bad.

 

[RocksnRoses]

For years wheat and barley has been sold through a single desk system which controlled all of the grain sales in the country, but that has been deregulated now and the grain trade is open to anybody and everybody. The farmers now have to decide who they sell their grain through and of course the biggest worry for farmers is whether the grain traders are going to be able to borrow the money to pay for their grain in the current world situation. This is leading to more farmers warehousing their grain in the silo system or storing the grain on the farm. I guess the farmers in the northern hemishere are facing exactly the same problems.
Here are some pics of a newer system which is becoming more popular here, that our neighbours are using. Is this system used over there at all?

Rn'R.

 

[MKTEF]

I'm willing to bet that hour Moose/elk would love to have a snack out of that tube in the winter!
Here our farmers store roundballs/tractoreggs in a system as that one.
They wrap the round hayballs in plastic as here in a long worm as this one.
Instead of wrapping each single ones.

 

[surfer-joe]

I saw some plastic rolls like this in Washington or Oregon this fall. But I wasn't aware that grain was inside, and I didn't see any machinery like this working either. Interesting to see a baler being towed directly behind the combine. Did not see anything like that here this year either, but suppose there is a fuel savings. Most fields here were either baled separately or burned. Must have been good harvests here, lots of grain being stored on the ground outside the silo's. How is the grain picked back up out of those tubes?

 

[RocksnRoses]

I'm willing to bet that hour Moose/elk would love to have a snack out of that tube in the winter!
Here our farmers store roundballs/tractoreggs in a system as that one.
They wrap the round hayballs in plastic as here in a long worm as this one.
Instead of wrapping each single ones.

You are probably right, MKTEF, the tubes would not be suitable every where. I did hear that they have had problems with mice burrowing in from underneath. Some farmers wrap round hay bales here, but I have never seen them stored in a long tube.

I saw some plastic rolls like this in Washington or Oregon this fall. But I wasn't aware that grain was inside, and I didn't see any machinery like this working either. Interesting to see a baler being towed directly behind the combine. Did not see anything like that here this year either, but suppose there is a fuel savings. Most fields here were either baled separately or burned. Must have been good harvests here, lots of grain being stored on the ground outside the silo's. How is the grain picked back up out of those tubes?

Joe, I am not quite sure how they pick the grain up, but I think they might use a Grainvac, virtually a giant vacuum cleaner that sucks the grain out and blows it in to a truck.
Here is a link to one. http://www.jetstream.com.au/cat2.cfm?Cat2=GrainVacs
I will try and get some pics if I am around when they empty them.
That is not a baler behind the header, it is a chaff cart. I did see a video on Youtube of a header towing a baler, but I have never seen anyone here do it. Chaff carts were originally used to catch the chaff and straw from the header and then dumped when full, leaving heaps of chaff and some grain that blows off the seives, in heaps around the paddock for the stock to feed on during summer. In this instance the chaff cart is being used to catch the chaff off the seives which also contains seed from weeds in the paddocks, so instead of blowing it back over the paddock to germinate in the next crop, they catch it, then dump it in heaps and they then burn the heaps before seeding, to get rid of the seed. It is another way of keeping the paddocks free of weeds.

Rn'R.

 

[scrub bull]

top looking setup your neighbours have got, was only reading the other day how hit and miss the crops have been all over the place, some farmers don't have enough storage capacity from bumper crops, other only a couple of hundred km's away, have nothing and face financial ruin..... again. It's so cruel.

 

[KMB83]

i do not know of very many guys that blow grain into plastic tubes..... could be because of animals, could be the amount of rainfall. yes you do see them, but i'll betcha a doughnut that there is silage in the ones in North America. I did happen to be in South America and see them "picking" one of these up.

i think i attached the picture.

i got a question for ya, looks like the size of combine is a JD CTS, in our world it looks like a 9400/9500/9600 series. whats the nomenclature for combine size/capability down there?

 

[Oliver182]

Looks like quite the operation, some guys around these parts use grain bags also

 

[Lashlander]

i'll betcha a doughnut that there is silage in the ones in North America. I did happen to be in South America and see them "picking" one of these up.

I have never seen those used for grain. Didn't know they were. KMB's right. I've only seen them used for silage.

 

[RocksnRoses]

In an earlier post, I said that I thought the grain was sucked out of the bags but, KMB83 has posted a pic of the machine that they actually use to auger the grain from the bag. This type of storage is becoming more popular here because of grain de-regulation and especially with farmers that have remote properties away from their central operation. It is not real cheap, a bag costs A$800 and can only be used once. Each one holds about 175 tonnes. They do suggest that the farmers monitor them constantly, checking for any vermin activity, tears or weather damage. I don't know if they are used for storing silage in this country or not, because silage isn't used in our area.

The crops here were hit and miss too, scrub bull, some good, some not worth reaping and the overall quality of the grain was down because of the dry finish.

KMB83, I am not quite sure I understand your combine query, the harvester pictured is a CTS, there were two models, a CTS and a CTS 2, but I was told that John Deere are no longer bring the CTS models in to Australia. The 9000 series machines are very common here, but I don't know how the CTS machines compare in capacity with the 9000 series.

 

[roddyo]

Cts vs 9600

In an earlier post, I said that I thought the grain was sucked out of the bags but, KMB83 has posted a pic of the machine that they actually use to auger the grain from the bag. This type of storage is becoming more popular here because of grain de-regulation and especially with farmers that have remote properties away from their central operation. It is not real cheap, a bag costs A$800 and can only be used once. Each one holds about 175 tonnes. They do suggest that the farmers monitor them constantly, checking for any vermin activity, tears or weather damage. I don't know if they are used for storing silage in this country or not, because silage isn't used in our area..

These bags really got popular in the U.S. when everyone outside the cornbelt wanted to raise corn a few years ago. Our storage system in a lot of places was built to hold 50 bu. an acre beans. when people started looking at 200 bu. an acre corn there wasn't enough room to hold it. No one around here ever used the bags, they just built bins like crazy.

KMB83, I am not quite sure I understand your combine query, the harvester pictured is a CTS, there were two models, a CTS and a CTS 2, but I was told that John Deere are no longer bring the CTS models in to Australia. The 9000 series machines are very common here, but I don't know how the CTS machines compare in capacity with the 9000 series.

I was wondering the same thing about the CTS in Australia. The the U.S the CTS was a special designed combine built to harvest rice. It didn't do a very good job it grain. As a matter of fact it was terrible in corn. The 9600 was THE machine in grain. Also the CTS was a rotary setup a little like the TR 96 New Holland while the 9600 still had Rasp Bars.

 

[RocksnRoses]

I was wondering the same thing about the CTS in Australia. The the U.S the CTS was a special designed combine built to harvest rice. It didn't do a very good job it grain. As a matter of fact it was terrible in corn. The 9600 was THE machine in grain. Also the CTS was a rotary setup a little like the TR 96 New Holland while the 9600 still had Rasp Bars.

The CTS had both, a conventional drum thresher and rotary separation behind that. The farmers here that have the CTS machines are very happy with them, they work particularly well in barley and wheat, but not quite so good on legumes. These days the STS machines are way out selling the conventional machines in Australia.

Rn'R.

 

[KMB83]

RnR, agreed.

the "walkers" are on there way out. deere's new model line up is almost all rotors. and the boys that bleed red, well they've been talking about rotors for years, proof that no one company has a brain trust....

they appear to have a real edge in stemy beans. corn is more on par. anyone else have thoughts on other crops?

 

[roddyo]

I forgot about that.

The CTS had both, a conventional drum thresher and rotary separation behind that. The farmers here that have the CTS machines are very happy with them, they work particularly well in barley and wheat, but not quite so good on legumes. These days the STS machines are way out selling the conventional machines in Australia.

Rn'R.

I forgot about the CTS being both a conventional and a rotary. The thing I will always remember about the CTS is the way the rotary's would slide out the back to work on them. I never was around a CTS, about the time they came out we had a real good salesman at the New Holland Dealership and he filled this country up with TR 96's and TR 98's. Me, I was on a 1680 at that time. Up till the CTS and TR's came along the Axil-Flow was THE combine for Rice. In the Last few years John Deere combines have really made a comeback here. Does anyone run stripper headers down there? Also if it's so dry why do you swather your grain?

 

[RocksnRoses]

I forgot about the CTS being both a conventional and a rotary. The thing I will always remember about the CTS is the way the rotary's would slide out the back to work on them. I never was around a CTS, about the time they came out we had a real good salesman at the New Holland Dealership and he filled this country up with TR 96's and TR 98's. Me, I was on a 1680 at that time. Up till the CTS and TR's came along the Axil-Flow was THE combine for Rice. In the Last few years John Deere combines have really made a comeback here. Does anyone run stripper headers down there? Also if it's so dry why do you swather your grain?

It was a bit the same here, when the Axial Flows first came out, they took the market share fairly quickly, but Deere caught up with the newer machines and now the spread would be fairly even, with very few others. A lot of rice is harvested in New South Wales, but I don't know what their preference of harvester is.
There is a company that manufactures a stripper front, but there are none used in this area. I would think that they would be pretty good, especially in light crops where open fronts tend to drop the heads and that is maybe where they are used, in more marginal country where the crops are lighter.
Barley, canola and beans are the main crops that are swathed (we call it windrowed), for varying reasons. The main reason is that we can get strong, hot northerly winds from October on, right through summer and they can absolutely decimate a standing barley crop, by snapping the stalks and dropping the heads on the ground. Windrowing has taken all the risk out by cutting the crop just before it is ripe and putting into windrows, it also makes havesting very easy. To a lesser extent, because we are in a coastal envirionment, moisture can be a problem and the windrowed crops will always reap earlier than a standing crop. Our soils vary quite a lot and often the clay flats are ripe but the sandy country is still slighty green, so by windrowing, the whole crop dries off evenly. Also if a crop has a lot of weeds, mignonette beeing the main one here, which is still green at harvest time, the green seed pods dry off and can be blown out. Once the crop is windrowed, it just takes a lot of pressure off the harvest.

Rn'R.

 

[Tex3406]

I think that the stripper fronts are supposed to be suited to heavy crops, as there is minimal straw taken into the machine, speed can be increased for greater capacity. I have never seen one used, and don't know much about them though. Comb fronts were the best for light crops but they seem to have died out nowdays.

 

[RocksnRoses]

I think that the stripper fronts are supposed to be suited to heavy crops, as there is minimal straw taken into the machine, speed can be increased for greater capacity. I have never seen one used, and don't know much about them though. Comb fronts were the best for light crops but they seem to have died out nowdays.

You are right, Tom, they only strip the grain from the head, leaving the straw, which in turn gives the header more capacity, by keeping the straw out of the machine. I would think that they should work well in heavy and light crops. I haven't seen the current stripper fronts working, but many years ago we had an old Sunshine ground drive harvester with a stripper front on it, where a beater in the front was driven fairly fast by a belt and it beat the grain from the heads as they passed between the teeth. Comb fronts were similar in the sense that they combed the straw and only cut a small amount off with the head, once again giving the header more capacity. The comb fronts were fitted to machines of smaller capacity in the past, but were a real PITA in heavy tangled crops. Quite often we would have to stop and loosen all the teeth and widen the gaps in between, to allow the straw to pass through without choking. These days all the machines have open fronts and the capacity to handle anything that you can feed into them.

Rn'R.