Straight cutting canola?

[Hamloc]

In our area standing canola is not drying down. I swathed my canola about same time as my neighbour sprayed his invigor canola with roundup. My canola is almost all in the bin his is still testing 13 to 14. Was wondering if this is happening to everybody?

[Klause]

Ours is testing 7 to 9. All straight cut.

[tweety]

It could be the same problem as our crops. It won't stop raining!

[Partners]

Guys that are straight cutting here, there canola is white..Must be alot of loss before the combine even sees the field..

[RD414]

Stop and take a look Partners. Ours looks white but almost zero on ground. Loading tri axle like wheat. Too heavy to stuff it in 11% moisture canola. 7 moisture now. Big black seeds look like g****s. You do have to watch this stuff in bin like a hawk though.

[Klause]

Yeah we had researchers out here. Pre harvest loss was under 1 bu.

Weigh wagon yield straight was 6.7 bu better

[sumdumguy]

Theory according to Sumdumguy: Old Round-Up had 'heat' added. Now cheap Round-Up, you gotta add heat for it to have any effect. Good marketing? " If they aren't gonna pay through the nose for Round-Up, we'll fix that! "

I bought a jug of Round Up for yard use. First sprayer - no heat added-just double strength used on weeds, grass and lawn. No effect two weeks later. The other jug Round-Up and Sodium Salt - next day death all over, total kill.

[nicolaas]

lots of straight cut around this year. I have only straight cut when I am forced to. I find big winds will shell out standing canola, even lodged crops. It is a lot riskier than having it in the swath. I swath at the correct time (70 - 80 %), and not much difference in seed size on my farm. My swathed end up yielding more. I guess if there are anti shelling varieties being developed to straight cut so that is why it is suddenly the thing to do? One costly wreck will have people swathing again. I guess if my 36 ft swaths get too wet, It would be better to straight cut.

[Ronski]

Klause what header did you use? Any keer shear or just dividers? Cross auger? Thanks

[quadtrac]

very little straight cut canola done around here. 12 to 15% moisture.
Swathed stuff 7 to 8% moisture the last few days.

I think getting it in the bin is still worth something. Gamble for maybe a couple more bushels???
I must be missing something.

[Klause]

We use 2 heads


Massey 8570 has a 36 foot agco 5000 d****r no auger finger drum though.


The claas 470r has a 36ft Honeybee with a cross auger and the large center drum. I'll post a video later running it. Just regular dividers.



Why we straight cut?

Swather... 150 grand
Labour.... 200 hrs a year at 18 at hour
Fuel.... 1600 liters a year




Straight cut

1 pass. Labour savings 200 hours
Yield improvement... 5 bu at 10.50 52.50/acre

Equipment savings 50k



There's a lot more headers put there than ever before.... even around here guys are starting to see the light.


The arguments of wind shatter... all of thr USA south America Europe Australia... they don't use swathers. We are basically the only place in the world that swaths grain crops.


We have had 4 days of 50k winds that started moving canola swaths. Never touched our standing well knitted crop.


Nor saying it works everywhere all the time but I really think it is the way of the future.

[Daylate]

So... serious question. Would all you guys think it's safe enough to let it stand till the end of harvest and do it last? Just curious because I wouldn't want it getting in the way of cereal harvest.thats the biggest reason for not trying it. I would hate to have to go for it when I still have durum or whatever still out.

[TOM4CWB]

Straight cut cost 25 percent capacity on combine vs swath. Just like wheat. Green weeds and junk that will not blow out cause it is wet and same density as canola seed.

Spolt canola in bins? Rolling binned canola to keep in shape? Wet deliveries off combine to elevator that are actually 8.5 and dry... two or three weeks late after no room left... burned belts and plugged rotors...

We need a cooking good frost to fix the straight cut Canola... and it did not happen.

[Braveheart]

We straight cut a field of L130 expecting shelling losses. There were virtually none. The L130 was badly lodged though. Moisture was 8.7 and it went through like butter.

Our L140P had a few green spots last week, but we'll get in it tomorrow if it doesn't rain tonight.

We use a Case 2020 header locked in rigid. Fingers all the way down the auger really move the canola in. Don't know yet if the air reel is a benefit. Power dividers would help as it would allow us to cut virtually any direction. The feeder house doesn't like green stalk patches at all.

I echo Klause's comment re loss as well as the economics of straight cut vs swathed canola.

[MBgrower]

I didnt use my air reels, didnt need to, plus was worried about blasting seed out of the headers.