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Field day helps dial in soybean harvest

An extension educator says there are three areas farmers can focus on to reduce soybean harvest losses.

“Maintenance, timing, and equipment selection and operation.”

Mike Staton with Michigan State University Extension tells Brownfield maintaining a sharp and aligned cutter bar should be a farmer’s top priority.

“It’s not a problem under really ideal conditions, but if you get into tough conditions a poor performing cutter bar will really cost you money,” he says.

Staton regularly compares different types of equipment and draper heads to help farmers prepare for harvest.

“You can actually start combining earlier with a draper head than you can with an auger head because what happens on these wide auger heads is that the material just doesn’t feed in from the edges into the feeder housing as it should,” he explains.

Crop farmer Todd Green tells Brownfield switching heads has helped him capture more yield.

“When they told me it would save three to four bushes of beans I was skeptical, it saves all of that three to four bushels of beans,”

Brownfield interviewed both during this year’s MSU Soybean Harvest Field Day at Green Farms in Hopkins.