Damaging winds before and during grain sorghum harvest in South Dakota frequently result in high crop loss due to lodging. One way to avoid lodging is to harvest soon after maturity when grain is at high moisture content. This is acceptable in many areas. But in some areas, such as central South Dakota, many farmers believe they cannot justify the expense of drying equipment and. so they wait for the sorghum to mature naturally which increases possibilities of lodging. An investigation by the Agricultural Engineeering Department at South Dakota State University compared different header attachments on a conventional combine to determine if any could materially reduce crop losses due to lodging. Field losses of various header attachments were evaluated from tests in the fall of 1965 and 1966 at the Agricultural Engineering Experiment Station Research Farm near Brookings. The attachment which resulted in the lowest grain loss was then evaluated economically to determine if ownership could be justified under South Dakota conditions

Matter, V. E.

Turnquist, P. K.

English

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South Dakota State UniversityOpen PRAIRIE: Open Public Research Access InstitutionalRepository and Information ExchangeBulletins South Dakota State University AgriculturalExperiment Station11-1-1967Header Attachments Help Save Grain Sorghum atHarvestP. K. TurnquistV. E. MatterFollow this and additional works at: http://openprairie.sdstate.edu/agexperimentsta_bulletinsThis Bulletin is brought to you for free and open access by the South Dakota State University Agricultural Experiment Station at Open PRAIRIE: OpenPublic Research Access Institutional Repository and Information Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Bulletins by an authorizedadministrator of Open PRAIRIE: Open Public Research Access Institutional Repository and Information Exchange. For more information, pleasecontact michael.biondo@sdstate.edu.Recommended CitationTurnquist, P. K. and Matter, V. E., "Header Attachments Help Save Grain Sorghum at Harvest" (1967). Bulletins. Paper 542.http://openprairie.sdstate.edu/agexperimentsta_bulletins/542if" 5 1967 Bulletin 542 November 1967 2 Use of a trade name does not imply en­dorsement of one product over another. Header Attachments Help • • • SAVE GRAIN SORGHUM at Harvest If you have at least 90 acres of grain sorghum a year, a commercial row harvester would pay for itself in 8 years by reducing grain losses. The implement would "pay its way" even sooner if lodging occurred at least once during its service life. Damaging winds before and dur­ing grain sorghum harvest in South Dakota frequently result in high crop loss due to lodging. One way to avoid lodging is to harvest soon after maturity when grain is at high moisture content. This is acceptable in many areas. But in some areas, such as central South Dakota, many farmers believe they cannot justify the expense of drying equipment and. so they wait for the sorghum to mature naturally which in­creases possibilities of lodging. An investigation by the Agricul­tural Engineeering Department at South Dakota State University com­pared different header attachments on a conventional combine to de­termine if any could materially re­duce crop losses due to lodging. Field losses of various header at­tachments were evaluated from By PAULK. TURNQUIST, associate professor, and VERN E. MATTER, former graduate research as­sistant, Agricultural Engineering Department tests in the fall of 1965 and 1966 at the Agricultural Engineering Ex­periment Station Research Farm near Brookings. The attachment which resulted in the lowest grain loss was then evaluated econom­ically to determine if ownership could be justified under South Da­kota conditions. 1965 TESTS Cultural Practices and Machinery Grain sorghum stalks were chopped and plowed in late fall of 1964. A commercial grain sorghum was planted May 28, 1965, with a till planter on 30-inch row spacing. Pre-emergence weed control was applied in a band. The crop was harrowed once with a flextine har­row and cultivated once. The sor­ghum was sprinkler irrigated three times. Recommended amounts of fertilizer were applied. A s e 1 f - propelled combine equipped with a conventional grain 3 head harvested the sorghum on Oc­tober 6, 11, 15, and 29. The reel had been modifie\I from original equipment on the basis of previous studies. The original reel consisted of four 4-inch batts while the modi­fied reel consisted of six 16-inch batts. The diameter of the modi­fied reel was 53! inches. Straw walker covers were installed to minimize stalk lodging in the ma­chine. Cylinder speed was set at 780 r.p.m. and concave clearances were three-eighths of an inch for front and one-eighth of an inch for rear. Sieve and wind setting were adjust­ed to do the most efficient job of sav­ing and cleaning the grain. Attachments Studied Two attachments were compared with the conventional h e a d e r on the four harvesting dates. At­tachment 1 was Flexo - Guards1 which are guard extensions with rods that extend ahead and above the guards. Attachment 2 consisted of row crop snouts designed by the researchers to lift lodged stalks and to prevent cut heads from be­ing thrown on the ground or into the cutting knife. Results of Tests Table 1 shows the losses meas­ured for each attachment and the conventional header on the four harvesting dates. On the October 6 harvest, the grain sorghum was standing and in good condition. The Flexo-Guards and the row crop snouts performed better than the conventional header. With the conventional header, cut heads fell into the cutting knife and were re-1Flexo-Guard is the trade name of the attach­ment manufactured by the Richardson Manu­facturing Company of Cawker City, Kansas. Flexo-guards, mounted on the conventional header, help in saving heads under standing conditions. 4 u, Harvest date and moisture Oct. 6 25% Moisture content Standing Oct. 11 18% Moisture content Lodged Oct. 15 15% Moisture content Lodged Oct. 29 15% Moisture content Lodged Table 1. Losses as a Percent of Total Yield, 1965 Treatments Conventional Header Flexo-guards Row crop snouts Conventional header Flexo-guards Row crop snouts Conventional header Flexo-guards Row crop snouts Conventional header Flexo-guards Row crop snouts Reel loss* 8.9 3.8 2.9 19.4 32.5 18.4 24.6 22.8 32.9 41.4 45.5 38.2 Header loss Cutter-bar (Reel+ All other losst cutter-bar) components+ 3.8 12.7 2.1 1.8 5.6 0.9 13 42 19 4.5 5.1 5.4 2.6 5.0 3.7 6.1 6.7 4.9 23.9 37.6 23.8 27.2 27.8 36.6 47.5 52.2 43.1 2.9 2.2 3.6 3.3 4.5 3.6 6.0 4.8 7.1 *Whole heads which were not harvested. tCutter-bar shatter and partial heads. +Cylinder, shoe, and rack losses. (See Graph, Next Page) Total loss 14.8 6.5 6.1 26.8 39.8 27.4 30.5 32.3 40.2 53.5 57.0 50.2 Yield bu./A. 50.2 64.0 57.3 83.0 57.2 62.2 79.5 74.7 72.4 78.8 79.4 77.9 cut and partially lost. The attach­ments prevented much of this type of loss. Both attachments also min­imized loss of whole heads which were kicked forward by the feeder auger. The last three harvests were conducted under heavily lodged conditions caused by a severe windstorm on October 7, 1965. Un­der these conditions, one method was not consistently better than any other. All were considered un­satisfactory. Total losses ranged from 27% to 57% of the yield. 1966 TESTS Cultural Practices and Machinery Grain sorghum s t a 1 k s were chopped and fall plowed in 1965. Commercial seed was till planted May 24 and 25, 1966. Oil and atra­zine, 1 pound/acre, was applied as a post-emergence treatment and two cultivations were used to ob­tain effective weed control. Three sprinkler irrigations were applied during the summer. Recommended amounts of fertilizer were applied. The same self-propelled combine was used as in the 1965 tests. Attachment Studied Flexo-Guards and row c r o p snouts were not used during the 1966 tests. On the basis of the 1965 tests it was concluded that an at­tachment with gathering devices should be considered. After pre-60 HEADER LOSS [as °/o of total yield] 1111111111 Conventional 1965 HARVEST 50 - Flexo-guards -1•1 Row crop snouts --[See "Header Loss" column, Table 1] - I 40 --• -- I I -30 - I -= -- -I I - i -- -20 - I - I - -- --I I - - I -- - -- -- I -I 10 = - - I -- - -- � I -2, =11 - ,II --0 :Oct. 6 = Oct. 11 :Oct. :Oct. 6 liminary studies were made, it was decided to test a Hesston Row Har­vester. 2 The row harvester was compared to a conventional header on three harvesting dates of Octo­ber 4, 7, and 17, 1966. Results of Tests The grain sorghum was standing for the first two harvest dates. The tJ,ird date was delayed until a de­gn-:e of lodging oc:curred which was about the same as the J.965 lodg­ing. A paired experiment was used to compare the two treatments. Table 2 shows the 1966 results. Field shatter and header shatter losses were collected, but not in­cluded in the header loss analysis because of the minute quantities. Table 3 shows the yield data for each test in table 2. A comparison of table 1 with table 2 shows conventional header loss did not differ greatly between the two years. For the 1965 season under standing conditions, the overall average header loss was 12. 7% while under lodged conditions it was 32.9%. The 1966 averages were 10.8% for standing conditions, and 34.8% for lodged conditions. Table 2 shows that on the aver­age the row harvester under heav­ily lodged conditions had less loss than the conventional header un­der any of the conditions tested. Statistically the row harvester per­formed significantly better than the conventional header for all harvesting dates. For the severe lodging, October 17, the conven­tional header loss was 3.5 times 2Made by Hesston Manufacturing Company, Hesston, Kansas. 7 Row harvester units are mounted on the conventional header. Gathering lugs ( ar­row) on belts help bring stalks into the header of the machine. greater than the row unit. It should also be noted that for stand­ing conditions, October 4, the con­ventional header loss was 2.6 times greater than the row unit. It was concluded that a row har­vester which has gathering devices does reduce harvest losses appre­ciablv. ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF ROW HARVESTER In order to justify a row harvest­er, the savings in grain should pay for owning and operating the at­tachment. The break-even acres re-quired to justify ownership was based on the following data: (3) $1.00 per bushel for market price of grain sorghum. (1) A grain saving by row har­vester as compared to con­ventional header under stand­ing conditions of 4.28% of yield. ( 4) Cost of a 4-row unit, drive, and freight $900 (1966). (5) Service life of 8 years. (6) Annual cost of owning and operating of 15% of purchase price. (2) A yield of 35.4 bu./ A. based on South Dakota average for 1959-63. Using the above figures gives a savings of $1.51 per acre in grain Pair 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Table 2. Header Loss as a Percent of Total Yield, 1966 October 4 October 7 October 17 24% moisture content 19% moisture content 19% moisture content standin standin lod ed �tional Row Conventional Row Conventional Row ------- ----------------------------- ------ ------------------------ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------··--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------header harvester header harvester header harvester 5.5 1.4 10.9 1.8 38.4 7.3 10.7 3.7 8.1 3.3 35.4 9.6 9.2 4.2 11.4 4.0 33.4 9.6 14.6 8.4 11.9 4.7 40.5 11.4 13.3 4.8 8.3 4.8 48.1 16.6 7.8 4.9 11.9 4.1 26.3 7.5 15.3 4.3 15.8 6.5 32.8 13.3 12.8 6.5 7.1 3.2 30.3 7.8 12.7 3.2 11.5 1.2 28.6 7.7 10.3 1.6 7.8 3.2 34.l 6.7 Average -------------- 11.2 4.3 10.5 3.7 34.8 9.7 40 HEADER LOSS [as% of total yield] ________ _ JO 20 10 0 Row harvester � Conventional ----1966 HARVEST [See "Average", Table 2] = -= t. 4 � 8 One unit is mounted on the conventional header for each sorghum row. saved. This requires 90 acres per year of use to pay for the attach­ment. Any acreage above this would be additional profit. All field losses were assumed as total losses not re­covered by grazing livestock. When considering these figures it must be realized that conservative values were used in the calcula­tions. The probability of lodging at least once during the assumed life of the attachment is relatively high. Any lodging that would occur dur­ing the actual service life would reduce the break-even acres. Table 3. Yield Data in Bushels/Acre at 12% Moisture Content (M. C.) 1966 October 4 October 7 October 17 24% moisture content 19% moisture content 19% moisture content standing standing lodged Conventional Row Conventional Row Conventional Row Pair header harvester header harvester header harvester 1 ----·----------------- 95.4 100.9 102.8 100.3 71.0 93.4 2 ---------------------- 86.9 89.7 71.9 83.1 52.2 81.6 3 ---------------------- 94.0 93.0 83.1 87.4 53.1 72.7 4 _ -------------------- 96.8 70.0 73.7 87.7 76.2 68.7 5 ---------------------- 79.1 66.2 70.8 83.8 35.4 68.5 6 ---------------------- 84.6 75.5 103.0 109.3 79.3 90.8 7 ---------------------- 72.8 76.4 70.6 86.7 60.0 65.9 8 ----------------------- 82.9 76.0 69.8 89.9 65.5 76.7 9 ---------------------- 64.6 61.1 75.1 93.6 89.8 89.0 10 ---------------------- 81.6 71.7 95.0 91.5 88.3 87.9 Average -------------- 83.9 78.0 81.6 91.3 67.1 79.5 9 If lodging is assumed, and a grain savings by the row harvester as compared to a conventional header is 25% of yield, the savings in grain is $8.85 per acre. This re­sults in a break-even acreage of 15.25 to own and operate the at­tachment. SUMMARY In a 2-year study, three attach­ments for a conventional header on a self-propelled combine were test­ed in harvesting of grain sorghum. Purpose of the study was to deter­mine whether or not grain losses could be reduced and whether or not the resulting savings would pay for the additional cost of the attach­ment. Tests in 1965 indicated that Flexo-Guards and row crop snouts offered no significant improvement over a conventional header. The 1966 tests indicated that a row har­vester which has gathering devices significantly reduced grain losses under standing and lodged condi­tions. Conservative calculations in­dicated that the average South Da­kota farmer could justify the owner­ship of commercial units if his an­nual acreage is 90 acres or more. This is assuming that lodging does not occur. If lodging occurs at least once during the service life of the attachment, the break-even acres to justify ownership would be lowered. Additional information on grain sorghum harvest losses may be ob­tained in Agricultural Experiment Station Circular 172 "Reducing Grain Sorghum Shatter Losses." The unit is attached to a bracket (arrow) which is bolted to the header. l O l l 

Header Attachments Help Save Grain Sorghum at Harvest

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Header Attachments Help Save Grain Sorghum at Harvest

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