2015 Harvest with Stripper Header -- Dry Peas

     We have finished harvesting our spring planted standup peas.  The weather decimated the crop.  We started out with a great plant population, but growth and seed development was stopped by frost and heat.   Our yield was ≈200#/ac of poor quality (small and dimpled) peas.
      The stripper header did fine.  We missed a few low pods, and there was a little pod shatter where the 32' solid head didn't fit the terrain.
      I think the split and skinned seed is manageable with the stripper head; however, a decent yielding crop is needed to evaluate this aspect of the harvest.  We had more splits than I would normally want, but, was it from the pea condition or from rattling around a near empty combine impacting with metal parts.  With two spinning rotors and so little cushioning material going into the combine, this may be challenging.
      Such a short crop needed an auto trim for the speed we traveled.  Kye doesn't think auto height control would have helped but feels we need to reduce the force of ground impacts.  The pea harvest is much dirtier than the small grain harvest.  Pods, leaves, and vines shatter into fine dust that envelops the machine.  We chemically dried the crop so very little green material entered the machine (weeds or crop).
      There is a lot of pea stubble left standing, making it look more like a grain field than a pea field.

Watch the crop, particularly the branchy china lettuce plant before and after the combine passes over the peas. (Sorry, the full screen web version of this video is poor.)

This area shows good growth of pea vine (a little over my knee), but few pods.  A close look will show that there is standing winter wheat stubble that is helping support the pea vine.  Where we have standing stubble the peas stand a little taller.  Wheel tracks don't have much effect on the stubble support, but flattened areas such as truck loading spots and some corners with multiple turns are too wide, and vines sag.  Supported vines appear to hold the bottom pods higher off the ground which is good for the stripper header.