Things that were apparent:
-- After observing the two other operations that were in a higher rainfall, if we had not had the 28 degree night June 12th, I think we could have had a pretty decent crop. The frost devastated the low ground.
-- The 40' draper did an amazing job of getting close to the ground without picking up dirt. That big header was light on its feet, and the flex in the middle allowed it to follow the ground contours quite well. The ground was smooth and soft. The terrain was fairly consistent with few sharp slope transitions. The vines were tangled and some branching was on the ground.
-- The older 24' pea bar equipped auger header was on harder soil surface and still had difficulty with pushing dirt. It had no auto header control features. There were a lot of low pods on the vines. Many vines were not standing erect.
-- Our ground had more sharp slope transitions than the other two operations which makes for more challenge. Our ground also has a rougher surface. It has been 20+ years since we have leveled the surface with cultivation or even a harrow. Our stand population was a little less and the vines appeared to stand a little better than the other two operations, but there were many low hanging pods.
-- A 32 foot ridged stripper header is too long for this short statured crop in our hilly terrain.
-- Since pod drop was the main loss observed in all three operations, and all operations had some bare seed on the ground, I don't think the stripper head shelled and spit out seed any worse than the other two header types.
-- I don't think the stripper header processing is any harder on the chickpea seed than the other header types.
-- We were able to leave a lot of chickpea residue standing following harvest, and very little old residue was reprocessed. The other operations clipped the crop at ground level and processed all the residue, leaving a fast degradable, low carbon surface cover.
-- Our heavy residue may be a problem with other header types. A least, much more would be reprocessed. This in turn will degrade our surface cover.
-- I think a 20' Shelbourne stripper header will work just fine for this crop in our terrain, --and even better if you include the auto header control features.
The weeds we encountered were nearly all Russian Thistle. They are a problem when large and green; however, if they are dried down, they were not any real issue. They do slow up your ground speed.
