DS meeting - Shelbourn Stripper Header

[Update - 11/2/14] Reflection -- The comments during and after the meeting expressed an understanding that techniques to keep the soil cool and the wind off the surface were important in saving moisture.  The presenters from low rainfall areas agree that surface protection (cover) is important, but are struggling to raise enough biomass to make that happen.  
      We have limited experience (3yr) with an ultra-low disturbance cropping system, but there is evidence that we can maintain residue derived from our winter wheat crop, when it is followed by a low residue mustard crop that is then followed by a fallow period.  Prior to moving to a ULD system, we had too much residue to establish a decent spring crop following winter wheat, and too little residue going into a fallow period.  This spring, using the cross-slot drill, we were able to punch through 12,000#/ac residue into cool damp soil, establish an excellent stand, and suppress weed emergence.    Residue manipulation (mowing, harrowing, mashing, scuffing.) and using a hoe or disc drill that kicks dirt on the residue accelerates decomposition and promotes weed germination.  Most of our weeds emerge in the wheel tracks mostly places where there is scuffing and thin residue.
       We feel that the stripper header should be used as part of a ULD system.  It's an expensive tool to use with seeding systems that require additional residue management techniques prior to drilling. 
      
The Colfax, WA. Direct Seed Breakfast featured four speakers that reported on their experience using a stripper header.  WSU at Ralston, Wa. have 4 years experience, the Eriksen's at St. John have 3years, the Juris' at Bickleton have 2 years, and  DeWald's at Lind have one year of experience.
     All speakers had moisture saving as a primary reason for their use of the stripper header.
     Eriksen reported on a 1970-80's study by OSU and WSU, presented by Dr. Pappendick in 1989 where :  1-- moisture received is used in four ways: 1% goes below the root zone by hydraulic pressure, 4% runs off the soil surface, 12% is transpired through the plant, and 83% is lost from evaporation off of the soil surface.  2-- the closing comment by Dr. Pappendick at the time was that we could have some effect on moisture loss from evaporation by keeping the soil cool, and maintain a low air velocity across the surface.  Eriksen inferred that the stripper header is a big step toward meeting the the goal of lowering the air velocity.  Eriksen's have coupled the stripper header with an ultra low disturbance (ULD) drill to further  reduce moisture loss from evaporation.
      Although the Pappendick and Ramig study was never published, the WSU speaker made reference to studies that supported Pappendick's concluding statements about keeping soils cool and the surface calm. WSU's study with the stripper header involves temperatures, wind velocity and moisture differences.
      Both Eriksen and WSU stated that they were seeing a reduction of weed competition with the stripper header.  Eriksen stated that he thought they would be able, in time, reduce the number of chemical applications.
      Eriksen stated that he thought the stripper header would cut all crops that are raised in the area except canola and mustard and corn.   If canola and mustard crops have a short variety, they can also be cut.  The hood of the stripper header is the limitation.  It will not open wide enough to capture more than 24-30 inches of seed pods without significant crop loss.
     Juris commented that the header handled rocks quite will.  They experienced a number of strikes this year do to short crops left in the wake of the drought.  The header kicked them out with minimal damage to the rotor.  An adjustable plier works well to straighten out bent fingers resulting from striking the ground or foreign objects.

2014 Harvest with Shelbourn Stripper Header

The blog stats show that the stripper head is a topic that interests a number of people so I will add more harvest video and some commentary --- hopefully not redundant.

[SUMMARY]--We love the header!  We have used it for three harvests, cutting winter wheat, spring wheat, spring barley, and mustard.  I'm convinced that if the crop has seed heads confined to 24" or less on the stalk, it will do a good job.  With the drivers ability to adjust the height of the hood, the tilt of the header, and vary the rotor speed with the touch of a button, header loss can be kept very low whether you are harvesting 100+ bushel winter wheat or 600 pound mustard.  We haven't cut any peas, lentils, garbs, millet, or soybeans, but I don't think they would be a challenge.  Auto height and tilt control would probably be nice for low growing crops to further reduce crop loss and help with driver fatigue.  Of the crops I have raised over the years, sunflowers, corn, and canola are the only ones that I think would not work with the stripper head.  My understanding is that if we "push" the canola, then the stripper head would harvest it.  That is another $35K machine, and has to be used in a special way for a successful harvest.  If we farmed flat land it would be a good option.  My current thinking is that this money would be better spent on a good platform head configured for canola and tall mustard.

      Should you buy a Shelbourn Stripper Header ????????????  First question is ----> what do you want to accomplish with it.  Depending on how you intend on managing your fields it can be a godsend, or an absolute nightmare.  Long, standing stubble cannot be easily shredded and spread over the ground. The decision on how you will seed a crop back into that ground needs to be thought out before you purchase a Shelbourn.  From a practical standpoint, you will probably need to trade in your hoe or double disc drills for a new style, heavy single disc drill.  There are several companies with models to choose from, including the cross-slot from Baker .....company.

       In our case we had five goals we wished to achieve: 1--reduce moisture loss from evaporation.  2--improve survivability of our winter crops.  3--reduce weed competition, and 4--avoid buying a new model combine.  5--reduce the cost of growing a crop (improve our bottom line).  With only three seasons experience, all statements I make here may change in the future.  Being in a three year rotation, this is the first year that all our fields have had at least one crop harvested with the stripper head and seeded with the Cross-Slot drill. 

--It's too early to tell if we are seeing real moisture savings.  There is some indication that we are going in the right direction. 

 --Are we seeing improved crop surviability?   Maybe, it is questionable.  Our first opportunity was with the fall wheat seeded in Sept. 2013.  I think there was an influence by the residue mat that helped, although, we had serious winter damage from the December 2013 weather event.  There was no standing stubble, and the residue mat was not impressive.  Our August 2014 seeded winter canola will be the second opportunity to test crop survivability.  We seeded into very heavy residue with a lot of standing stubble.  Wheel tracks associated with harvesting, spraying and seeding all degrade the standing stubble, but we probably still have 30-40% standing.  

--Are we reducing weed competition?  We think this is a definite yes!  Broadleaf weed populations are falling dramatically.  Grassy weeds appear to be more persistent but there are signs that the population of these are falling.  We need to lengthen our rotation and include other crop types so we can employ different chemistry to effectively address this problem.  In general we find that fewer trips over the field means less surface disturbance and this seems to translate into fewer weeds germinating.  I now envision the possibility that an expensive chemical application may be skipped on occasion.  This will take a "mind adjustment" to allow a few weeds to grow in the crop, and it may not be field wide (possibly more spot spraying replacing field wide spraying).  This summer we only bordered the canola field with glyphosate -- come spring we'll see if that was a mistake.  In years past, not applying glyphosate prior to seeding was always a mistake regardless of whether you could see weeds or not at the time of spraying.

-- Can we avoid buying a newer model combine?  This is a YES!  Our 1985 Gleaner N7 has been a great machine for us over the years.  The one negative of this machine, is straw management.  The chaff spread is good, but straw management/spread is poor/horrible.  With our interest in building/maintaining surface residue, the amount of long straw on the surface from wheel smash and straw spread at harvest (straw choppers of this vintage machine, of any make, are ineffective for our purpose), the seeding operation became problematic.  We have shredded/chopped stubble for many years, starting with a 15' SunMaster flail, and progressing to a 26' 5026 Schulte rotory mower.  The amount of residue we were building overwhelmed this management tool.  The new micro-chop technology available on some brands of combines looked like an option.  That technology costs several 100k.  The Shelbourn Stripper head was another option.  We decided, after much discussion, the 32' Shelbourn offered us the best bang for the buck.  1--the header cost $70k including the machine conversion.  2-- it resolved our residue issues. We had already decided that the cross-slot drill would be the method of seeding whether it be owned, rented, or custom operated.  3--with the Gleaner history for supporting their older model machines we figure we can extend the useful life of the N7 another 10-20 years.  The N7 had plenty of capacity.  As it turns out we have gained ≈200 bu/hr in capacity with the Shelbourn.  Except for harvesting canola (specifically winter canola), this header is moving us to our goals of removing fallow from our crop rotation, less runoff from weather events, and better winter crop protection, better weed control, and a better bottom line.  The Shelbourn offers me the opportunity to scratch an itch I've had since listening to the report on research done in the late 70's about retaining moisture (post of 7/3/12).

Harvest video needs to be high quality but bloggers limit of 100mb per video limits quality.  High quality results in a very short video.

This video is of harvesting on flat, low ground, our late seeded Diva spring wheat in the 18-20" rainfall zone.  The flat, low ground yielded in the range of 80 to 100 bu/ac.  Once you left the low ground, yields plummeted.  We had three fields. 1--yield average was 50bu/ac, 2--46bu/ac, 3--43bu/ac.  The puff of black is where the fingers encountered a straw pile with some dirt mixed in.  See the 5/17/14 post to view drilling conditions in the area this video shows being harvested.

This video is of harvesting our winter wheat in the 15-17" rainfall zone.  The area shown (≈70ac) yielded a low of 100 bu/ac and a high of 140 bu/ac.  This area is frequently a disappointment to us -- not this year!  The field average was 78 bu/ac.  This area was apparently protected from the December event, being behind a higher ridge to the north.  Most of the field, which this area is a part of, is a long north facing slope that took the full brunt of the December cold, northeastern wind event that damaged all of the crops in the region.  I wish the field would have been seeded into standing stubble to see if that would have led to less crop damage.

       This video is of harvesting our late seeded spring barley on CRP takeout in the 15-17" rainfall zone.  This was a very poor crop.  The average yield was 3/4 ton/ac.
        The volume of material going through the combine from using the stripper head is a fraction of that from a platform head.  Combine adjustments need to be made to preserve grain quality and threshing efficiency.  Head tips can be difficult to thresh with so little straw in the machine.  Aggressive thresh can skin the grain.