Swathing Wheat

rusty6 · Sep 4, 2022

Got a bit of video swathing wheat today. The crop is a little light and short in places so I'm using the double swath feature to put two 21 foot swaths side by
side so I can put 42 feet through the combine. It will save a lot of turning and time when picking up the swaths with the pull type combine. . The little John
Deere diesel is very economical. Ran 20 hours on a tank of fuel and it took just about 25 gallons diesel to refill.

Swathing Wheat

rick n ohio · Sep 4, 2022

Nice video I'd like to run that thing

Bruce from Can. · Sep 4, 2022

Nice, I always did enjoy swathing grain, I have your swathers little brother with a 12 foot head. No one swathes wheat here in Ontario, too great a risk of rainy weather coming in and sprouting the grain in the swath. So the grain is either given a pre harvest burn down, or cut when close to dry and put through the dryer . 30-40 foot grain heads are about all that are run here now doing direct cut, makes one heck of a wind row to try getting the tractor over to bale straw. Still a few holdouts that swath barley or oats. Wheat crop here was very good this year, we have had a remarkable summer. Hope you can get your crop through the combine before the next rain.

John T · Sep 4, 2022

Fun video, thanks for posting. For an older style horse drawn version check out the linked video

Best wishes to all here

John T
Horse drawn harvest

WNYBill · Sep 4, 2022

I remember my uncle cutting grain with a binder. He didn't have the fifth wheel arrangement and it was hard on the horses holding the front of the binder up as well as pulling it. He only had a 2-horse team that he did all his work with. It was hard work for man and beast! Those guys worked awful hard. It was 75 years ago!

rusty6 · Sep 4, 2022

(quoted from post at 06:24:36 09/04/22) I remember my uncle cutting grain with a binder. He didn't have the fifth wheel arrangement and it was hard on the horses holding the front of the binder up as well as pulling it. He only had a 2-horse team that he did all his work with. It was hard work for man and beast! Those guys worked awful hard. It was 75 years ago!

We definitely have it easy now. I have photos of my grandparents working on this same field with horses and binder. "Trucks" under the binder hitch carried the weight and the horses only had to pull.

rusty6 · Sep 4, 2022

(quoted from post at 03:48:39 09/04/22) Nice, I always did enjoy swathing grain, I have your swathers little brother with a 12 foot head. No one swathes wheat here in Ontario, too great a risk of rainy weather coming in and sprouting the grain in the swath. So the grain is either given a pre harvest burn down, or cut when close to dry and put through the dryer . 30-40 foot grain heads are about all that are run here now .

For some reason I am seeing more swathing of wheat here this year. Maybe the high cost of glyphosate? I know some oats buyers specify they only want non-dessicated oats. I suspect some day if will be the same with wheat.

Centerplate · Sep 4, 2022

(quoted from post at 03:48:39 09/04/22) Nice, I always did enjoy swathing grain, I have your swathers little brother with a 12 foot head. No one swathes wheat here in Ontario, too great a risk of rainy weather coming in and sprouting the grain in the swath. So the grain is either given a pre harvest burn down, or cut when close to dry and put through the dryer . 30-40 foot grain heads are about all that are run here now doing direct cut, makes one heck of a wind row to try getting the tractor over to bale straw. Still a few holdouts that swath barley or oats. Wheat crop here was very good this year, we have had a remarkable summer. Hope you can get your crop through the combine before the next rain.

Bruce, I am curious what do you use to "burn down" prior to wheat harvest?

Tx Jim · Sep 4, 2022

rusty6
I sure would have thought a JD windrower engine would have burnt more than 25 gallons of fuel in 20 hours of cutting time.

Bruce from Can. · Sep 4, 2022

I still have my Grandfathers binder in a shed. My dad used it to cut grain until 1970. Wheat was usually cut here around the 15th of July. Now it gets direct cut anytime after the 25Th of July.

cdmn · Sep 4, 2022

The wheels and axles were very well-positioned to balance the weight of the binder.
When transporting down narrow roads, you might have used the transport wheels to
haul the binder lengthwise.

Bruce from Can. · Sep 4, 2022

Usually a glyphosate, like Round up, 2 weeks to 10days
before harvest. Its not something that gets done every
crop year, but sometimes if there is a lot of green stuff
coming up in the crop, or uneven ripening it can make
a huge difference.

rusty6 · Sep 4, 2022

(quoted from post at 06:46:13 09/04/22)
rusty6
I sure would have thought a JD windrower engine would have burnt more than 25 gallons of fuel in 20 hours of cutting time.

I'd expect the newer, bigger swathers would burn more than that but this is the little 239, four cylinder diesel German engine. The previous owner always commented how easy it was on fuel. He was right. My old International with the AMC 232 gas engine would easily burn double that amount of fuel.

flying belgian · Sep 4, 2022

So was that type head available for my old 800?

rusty6 · Sep 5, 2022

(quoted from post at 19:10:08 09/04/22) So was that type head available for my old 800?

I don't know about the 800 as I have never seen anything other than the standard centre delivery swath header on them. This 2360 is a Canadian built by Macdon in the late 1980s.

Majorman · Sep 5, 2022

Love the videos Rusty but have a question that may sound foolish. Here in the UK we only use a swather for crops such as rape. I can see some advantage by cutting a green or under sown crop to help with drying or ripening but your crop looks like it would combine direct with no problems. Is it just that the crop is so thin you need the two swaths to make the combine work correctly?

We do use glyphosate or Reglone on some crops but sometimes I wonder about the end result. Once saw a crop of bread wheat on a big farm where the combine moved in at one end of the field as the sprayer moved out at the other. Gave up eating bread for a short while. ;0(

rusty6 · Sep 5, 2022

(quoted from post at 03:21:54 09/05/22 your crop looks like it would combine direct with no problems. Once saw a crop of bread wheat on a big farm where the combine moved in at one end of the field as the sprayer moved out at the other. Gave up eating bread for a short while. ;0(

Its true a lot of the wheat is dry enough to combine but every low spot has green heads that will cause the whole sample to be too high moisture content for safe storage. Swathing will dry that down fairly quick in hot weather.
And if you saw a sprayer leaving a wheat field as the combine moved in that makes no sense at all. It takes days for glyphosate to have any effect on a crop. Running a sprayer costs money and runs down crop and who knows how glyphosate on the wheat affects our bread. I do like the weed control feature of it though.

Crazy Horse · Sep 5, 2022

Our tractor club (central Alberta) farms 90 acres in total, 40 at our home site (county owned) and another 50 a few miles east which we lease. Most of our annual income comes from the grain sales, usually feed grade barley. Drone photo below from last fall, we always swath and have a pair of JD-95 combines, one in the photo. This year we bought a beautiful MF550 that was babied by the original owner.

WNYBill · Sep 5, 2022

Ah yes. I remember how the binder swung around to transport down roads and lanes.

Bill

coonie minnie · Sep 5, 2022

I'm a conventional farmer, but I'm glad to see you still swathing. I'm not a fan of glyphosate right before harvest... it's no wonder there
are claimed traces in our food. I grow wheat, but have not resorted to glyphosate before harvest. One thing to spray early, like on corn or
beans where the part we eat isn't even developed yet, another a week before harvest across the grain heads.

I've sprayed plenty, doubt a lot of the cancer claims, but it seems like pushing one's luck.

On a brighter note- those 239s are easy on fuel, aren't they?

rusty6 · Sep 5, 2022

(quoted from post at 10:30:41 09/05/22) I'm a conventional farmer, but I'm glad to see you still swathing. I'm not a fan of glyphosate right before harvest... it's no wonder there
are claimed traces in our food. I grow wheat, but have not resorted to glyphosate before harvest. One thing to spray early, like on corn or
beans where the part we eat isn't even developed yet, another a week before harvest across the grain heads.

I've sprayed plenty, doubt a lot of the cancer claims, but it seems like pushing one's luck.

On a brighter note- those 239s are easy on fuel, aren't they?

Dessicating works well for the straight cutters but I wonder how much the kernels absorb of the spray? Can't be good. The little JD diesel is super easy on fuel. Two days on a tank is outstanding.

Swathing Wheat

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