Any better than chains?

[farmaholic]

I vividly remember cutting flax straw off of those paddles with a chain saw ! don't miss them at all, lol

LOL..Yup. Flax straw a Massey feeder house paddles, not a good combination. I remember timing them different so they weren't at 90 degree angles to each other. Seemed to help a bit. We've even had flax straw wrap around the top feeder chain shaft that the sprockets are on(feeder chain conveyance not paddles).... not fun. BUT we never pulled out the heavy artillery(a chainsaw). Always just used a tile knife(banana knife) and pulled.

[sumdumguy]

Buckwheat in lentils can be pretty bad too. They become a tough blanket-like mat. Ryobi saber saw to the rescue! But not without lots of bleeding knuckles.

[Guest]

LOL..Yup. Flax straw a Massey feeder house paddles, not a good combination. I remember timing them different so they weren't at 90 degree angles to each other. Seemed to help a bit. We've even had flax straw wrap around the top feeder chain shaft that the sprockets are on(feeder chain conveyance not paddles).... not fun. BUT we never pulled out the heavy artillery(a chainsaw). Always just used a tile knife(banana knife) and pulled.

ah, those were the days ! sure glad they're gone......

[AlbertaFarmer5]

AlbertaFarmer5 What make is your combine?

I run 8460 MF's, which are a Claas painted red. have two separate pairs of feeder chains.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

If you are having that much trouble with feeder, crop is not fit to combine, stay home don't wreck stuff and your sanity.

Crop is not fit to combine, except for 3 years in a row, possibly looking like 4, waiting for the crop to be fit for combining would mean waiting until next June. So my policy is if it will go through the combine by any means possible, it goes.

Which is one of the reasons why I run older machines which are nearly free. 2 years ago when I was combining wheat in December and getting significant snow/ice, I was told that it wasn't worth wrecking the combine for, my response was that for what I paid for the combine, I could replace with the gross from every 5 acres of wheat, and continued on.

If you saw our forecast you might agree. It is much less exciting combining tough grain/straw that is half way standing vs. after it is snowed on.

[farmaholic]

AF5, that is a very good policy when you never know what the weather will do and your trying to beat it and the days and weeks on the calender are ticking by. In some areas harvest time isn't measured in months. Although we seldom have too much of a problem getting the crop off because we are only Sandbox Farmers from the Slum of the Ghetto, there are people who have to take any reasonable condition to get the crop off. Waiting for grain moisture to drop that last point or two can prove costly and mean some crop might get spring thrashed, the conditions might be "better" but the quality and quantity loses might not be so good.


Good luck(management) everyone and stay safe in the process.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

AF5, that is a very good policy when you never know what the weather will do and your trying to beat it and the days and weeks on the calender are ticking by. In some areas harvest time isn't measured in months. Although we seldom have too much of a problem getting the crop off because we are only Sandbox Farmers from the Slum of the Ghetto, there are people who have to take any reasonable condition to get the crop off. Waiting for grain moisture to drop that last point or two can prove costly and mean some crop might get spring thrashed, the conditions might be "better" but the quality and quantity loses might not be so good.


Good luck(management) everyone and stay safe in the process.

Well said. A lot of expensive lessons learned the hard way here. Of course, every year is different and trying to apply previous years lessons doesn't always work.