Quick Change Concaves Improving Harvest Productivity
With climate model predictions of a low rainfall year, improving harvest productivity is on everyone’s minds. GRDC’s Harvest Losses report 2022/23 saw that…
“…the scale of grain and profit lost during the 2022/23 harvest found Western Australian growers left an estimated $320 million of grain in paddocks from front and machine losses across cereal, canola and grain legume crops”.
Investing time now into improving a harvester’s set up can be the difference between an average or a great year.
Kassie van der Westhuizen specialises in harvester set-ups and has many years of experience working with harvesters in different conditions.
“As it dries off pretty quickly in September and October your harvesting conditions will get more difficult because of the pinched grain. Pinched grain is when it’s harder to get the grain out of the head. So, your concaves need to be set up correctly to knock it out of the head.”
When a grower has pinched grain Kassie has been testing and using MADConcaves.
“That’s where the MADConcaves come in because they have that flat service where the material can sit on.”
The innovative design holds the material for improved thrashing. For growers who have a range of different crops changing concaves has always been time consuming, but now it doesn’t have to be. Once the MADConcaves™ modular frame is installed, concaves can be quickly and easily changed in minutes.
“If it’s too hot to go and do beans they need to swap concaves over and then they can do wheat or barley. But then once it’s cooler harvesting wheat or barley is more difficult so they might swap the concaves back out and do beans, so it’s very easy for us with the MADConcaves to swap it out, it takes 20minutes and your off and you can do your beans or your wheat or your barley.”
For most WA growers who came out of a good harvest in 2022, Kassie recommends as they go into harvest 2023 they spend the time adjusting and getting their concave settings right. Starting off with the same settings, sticking to the ground speed their happy with and then assessing their grain loss and making adjustments.
“If you’re going to have pinched grain you will see that the seed is still sitting in the head, that’s when you close the concave opening up about 25-30% and see whether we can get that last little bit out of the heads.”
GRDC’s report saw that the cereal machine losses were extrapolated to be $22,000 per average WA grower, those with had drop trays showed savings of $13,000. Kassie recommends to…
“Keep a good eye on your grain losses especially in the first couple of days, including in cereals, ‘cause everyone wants to get in there too early or rush to just get it done.”
MADConcaves are compatible with New Holland, John Deere X9, John Deere S/STS Series and Case IH.
Check out madconcaves to find out more.
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