1000 acres of wheat to cut

[leemsutton]

possibility of 1000 acres of wheat to cut! therefore the window is about 4 weeks. but of the 4 weeks we could loose a week for bad weather.

therefore in reality we've got 3 weeks to cut a 1000 acres of wheat yielding in the region of 4 tonnes per acre.

I am pretty sure we would be looking at a lexion 480 - any comments or help would be good. Unfortunately it would just be used for wheat so there are no other crops involved at the moment!

[[e-mail]]

Why just wheat?
One way of lookning at tjis is how many acres/day did you sow? Or how 'bout, if you only want to grow wheat why not use some late and some early varieties? I realize this is not an answer to your question, I'm just curious how the wheat-only situation happened.

As far as your "reality 3 weeks", perhaps it would pay not to tool up to harvest all grain every year? Perhaps in 1 of ten years you will have only 2 weeks. It might not pay to chase every acre in that situation.

A lexion 480 is supposed to handle 40 tonnes/hour.
1000 ac*4 tonnes = 4000 tonnes.
4000 tonnes /40 t/h = 100 combine hours/year.
100h on a combine = not too bad.
100h/ 3weeks = 33 h/week = quite possible

Of course it comes down to the questionable 40 t/h, but given good yields and field contition that should not be unreasonable. I realize this is a very simplified way of thinking, but it's the best I got at the moment.

[Classlexion]

A 480 would cut that area without the water in the rad getting hot. Just make sure you have the vario table its worth having. Just forget your driving a combine and drive it like a 880 forager 8kmh in wheat and singing

[[e-mail]]

Would the Vario-head really be worth having if he is only (for some reason I do not understand, perhaps ECO-TILL only works on that crop?) combining wheat?
As I understan it the advantage of Vario-head is when harvesting oilseeds, or at least have to switch between crops often, wich does not seem to be the case here.
Actually, I spoke to A Claas Representative in Sweden a while back about it. They do not even offer the Vario-head over here.

In case anybody missed it, the Claas vario-head makes it possible to extend/shorten the head of the combine to optimize intake of some crops. It has nothing to do with Vario tractors by Fendt.

[leemsutton]

Laapa,

Its a 1000 extra acres of wheat from a neighbour who only needs a hand this year.

So as well as cutting our own area of wheat (about 500 acres) there would be another 1000 of wheat plus all the other crops of rape, barley and beans.

Total area would be 2200 acres for this year only. Then next year we are back to 1200 acres again. I am just worried about be able to get 1000 extra acres of wheat through the machine.

Eco-till works with every crop.

[[e-mail]]

I figured some sort of deal like that would be involved.

Anyways, As far as I can tell the 480 would cover the 1000 ac. in 3-4 weeks. Providing yuo have the 3-4 weeks EXTRA TIME, not counting the time you need for your other crops.

PS. Only kidding on that Eco-till for wheat only remark. I've been reading up on the SOLO. Sure would like to see what it can do on our clay-laden fields overhere. Potential problems would be finding a big enough tractor, getting the acres done in time before it gets too wet (when that kind of tractor would do some serious damage).
Also, we are in an area where they are cracking down on us for using pesticides nowadays (close to the city water source. Cant use Roundup at all on some fields), as I understand it, chemical weedcontroll is crucial to the Eco-till system. I have no problem with using RoundUp myself, but those pesky consumers seem to mind.
Also, I understand the implement is suposed to come right after the combine, while we are able to get a bonus for not tilling the field untill a certain date (don't remember the exact date, but it's pretty late). Supposedly it's good for limiting Nitrogen leakage. (On our clay-fields? Yeah right, but that's rules for ya...)

[leemsutton]

Laapa,

Weed control is pretty crucial to eco tillage although we have done tests this last year with no chemicals and with chemicals. without having the proper results both crops look the same to the human eye.

Our soils are very clay based and ideally yes you want be behind the combine as quiclky as possible but as we all know thats pretty much impossible because of lots of things such as weather and break downs etc etc

Last year the best field was culitvated in july and drilled in spetember - so the answer is yes time is very important although other fields were culitvated about a week before the drill and are looking fine. doing it this way meant we did not need to spray as the weeds did not have time to chit. although you may want to consider a pre-emergence spray in that circumstance.

Have you thought about doing a test for this next year. Just put 20 acres or so into eco-till and see the time you save. I will guarantee it will look awful and you will think its failed but stick with it and the benfits will come through. ideally you dont want to make a decision about it until your 20 acres has been in ecotillage for at least 2 years as it tkes time to see the benefits.

were coming into our 2nd harvest with full eco-tillage and things are looking good across the board. I think the real benefits will show next year though. however we were into min till a while before that so our soils are perhaps a bit more conditioned that if your going straight from a plough.

keep looking at the www.eco-till.co.uk as i will have plant count results by the end of march.