Can I use a mo/co (haybine) as a swather?

[dbnair]

Hi,
I was wondering if you could help me.
I bought an IH82 pull-type combine for harvesting my 10 acres of oats. It has a pickup head on it.

I was wondering, can I use my JD 1219 mower/conditioner (haybine) to swath my oats for the combine? Will the haybine just rip the heads off the oats? or if I adjust the rollers out 2 inches, will it still leave too tangled a windrow to go in the combine? Any help/advice would be appreciated. Would prefer to avoid buying a swather and it'd be hard to find a direct cut head for that IH82 combine.
Thanks,
Grant

 

[cowboydoc]

I'm not sure what you are asking. A swather or a mower conditioner is not going to harvest oats. Both a swather and a mower conditioner work the same way. They knock down hay and put it in windrows.

If you are asking about making oat hay then the answer is yes. But you don't want to move your rollers 2" apart. When you make oat hay you make it before the oats head out too much. If you wait you basically have straw with oats and you lose alot of the oats in the haying process. You want to cut the oat hay while it's still green and before the oats have gone to seed.

Lastly if you are combining oats you don't knock them down first. An oat head on a combine will cut and thrash the oats to separate the oats from the straw. The straw will go out the back and the oats will go into a hopper.

 

[Spiffy]

If I'm reading right, he has the old "pick-up" head instead of the now more commonly used "striaght head", so he will need to swath first.

For best knock out, you like all the heads to drop the same direction and feed head first into the pick-up.

But that does leave the questions whether the haybine could be set wide enough to [or could the condioner be removed?] only windrow and how the windrow would lay.

Cowboydoc, any chance you can expand on your description of the conditioner adjustments to determine if it's feasible?

 

[cowboydoc]

I didn't even think anyone would attempt to even use of those old ones anymore. My mistake then. I will tell you that you will be money ahead to have someone with a good combine do those oats for you. You will probably lose as much trying to swath and then combine as it would cost someone to do it.

On the mower conditioner you can set those rollers all the way open. There is an adjustment on the side to take up the pressure between the rollers. You can also set the windrows all the way open so that it has the hay spread out more than in a windrow. We will do this when the hay is really heavy and rain is coming so that it will dry faster.

 

[Robert_in_NY]

Doc, depending on his area, it is common to swath their grain crops to get them to dry down enough to harvest because of their short growing season. Swathing grain is very common in Canada and a lot of new combines up there are running pickup heads.

As for this issue, I would think even trying to loosen the rolls as much as possible will still knock a lot of the oats off but if it is the only way for him to harvest then there is only one way to find out for sure.

Also, custom cutters are hard to get in some areas as unless they are in the area they won't waste their time to bring their equipment out for a 10 acre field. In my area you would be looking at $40 per acre just for the combine, trucking the crop is extra. When you start to figure it out, it is actually quite feasible to buy a late 70's (well maintained) early 80's self propelled combine as it will pay for itself in a few years (unless it blows up that is). There are a lot of old JD 7700's and such that can be bought for under $5k and are in great shape. The JD 4400's are usually in the $3k range.

I still have one corn field that has not been harvested because it is too wet. When it could have been the harvester was doing his own fields. Now the animals get to eat all winter unless the ground freezes so he can get his 2wd cutter in. He tried it once and buried it /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif

 

[cowboydoc]

Well I am totally wrong then. /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif I never knew people still did that. My apologies for giving bad information. You must knock it down then before it is fully ripened. Does it actually ripen on the ground then? It would surely be easier just to make it up into oat hay wouldn't it? You'd get the same nutritional content out of it without all the waste and extra work.

 

[Robert_in_NY]

It depends on his use. If he wants to bale the straw and sell the oats then he needs to seperate them as you know.

There are tens of thousands of acres swathed every year still in Canada and I can't tell you everything about it I am fairly certain they have to time it fairly close to minimize loss. The crop is normally ready but the weather starts cooling down quicker which doesn't allow it to dry out like it does in the States. So they cut it like hay to remove the water source and allow it to dry down. I will try to find some sites that explain it better as I always enjoyed seeing the different equipment that is used.

We all learn something new everyday so don't feel bad /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[cowboydoc]

I guess I'm a little confused Robert. Once oats mature out, and you can get 45 day oats, then they are basically dead. Once that happens the water to them is gone. It's basically a dead stalk. Hay on the other hand is always alive and growing. I guess I don't see the benefit to letting the oats dry on the ground? I would think you would get more moisture pickup on the ground and cutting the oats early rather than leaving them on the stalk.

 

[Robert_in_NY]

As I said, I don't know all the facts behind it so I could be confused on some of it also. I just remember talking to some friends up in Canada and they were explaining it to me.

Here is a link to a discussion about using a hay/discbine as a swather (basically, they say it is a no no) YTmag discussion

Here is an article dealing with oats Oats

This is a couple paragraphs that deals with what we are wondering about swathing vs. straight cut. (basically they say swathing gives you less loss)

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( Modern harvest technique is a matter of available equipment, local tradition, and priorities. Best yields are attained by swathing, cutting the plants at about 10 cm (4 inches) above ground and putting them into windrows with the grain all oriented the same way, just before the grain is completely ripe. The windrows are left to dry in the sun for several days before being combined using a dummy head. Then the straw is baled.

Oats can also be left standing until completely ripe and then combined with a grain head. This will lead to greater field losses as the grain falls from the heads and to harvesting losses as the grain is threshed out by the reel. Without a draper head, there will also be somewhat more damage to the straw since it will not be properly oriented as it enters the throat of the combine. Overall yield loss is 10-15% compared to proper swathing.

)</font>

Hope this helps as I learned something new also.

 

[Egon]

In Alberta most grain's are swathed prior to combining. This is due to the shorter growing season. The grain dries in the swath.

This past fall, while on a short visit to central Alberta, I saw my first staight combining in action. Five green combines working one field. This was an exception.

Egon