canola is horizontal.

rustred · Sep 20, 2023

finished swathing the canola today. took this pic where i was told that was poor looking canola by ... but thats one thing with canola,... it may look poor in the spring but harvest shows the true picture. quite satisfied with it so far. in a couple weeks it will be ready for the combine. this is a 1981 versatile swather getting the job done.

Tractorcedric · Sep 20, 2023

Beautiful, what part of the country is that?

rustred · Sep 20, 2023

central alberta.

Patsdeere · Sep 20, 2023

For a non farmer, why swath and then combine? Seems like it would be cheaper to not make the extra pass, less compaction and time to simply leave it until you combine.

paul · Sep 20, 2023

I dont know anything about canola exactly, but crops need to be a certain moisture level or lower to store for any time.

Cereal crops like wheat, oats, rye, canola tend to dry down differently in different parts of the field. Depending on soil type and rain accumulation in heavy or light soil.

The dry parts will fall apart so dry, the wet parts of the field will never dry out until it freezes.....

Swathing creates a uniform, dead, crop that dries out to a uniform level so it can all be combined and stored.

It also kills any weeds growing. Green weeds are hard to get through a combine, and can add bits of wet green weed stem to the grain also causing problems.

Modern combines have much higher capacity and can more easily choke through weeds and green spots so people more often straight combine now in some areas.

Also there are acids or herbicides used in some areas to spray the crop and kill it, and then straight combine these crops. No swathing, but you have the spraying trip and expense.

Paul

Paul

Masseyharrisnut · Sep 20, 2023

Hi rustred. Everyone down my way would be jealous of that canola crop. Some canola crops right around our farm are running 6 to 10 bushel per acre. Im guessing thats an 18 foot swath. My neighbor used a 36 foot swather and its not near as big as your swath. Im glad yours is a good one this year. Safe harvesting rustred.

rustred · Sep 20, 2023

This is a 15 ft header. In places I was cutting like 14 ft because it just barely fit through the header opening. Plus I would say I was going like 8 mph, as with the speed helped keep the canvases clear and it would be thrown off kinda in uniform with the reels and canvas speed and ground speed all being equal. As for why swath? Well I dont have a straight cut header for combine and anyone around here has to desicate the crop so it dry. Meaning spray it with round up. Not too much straight combing canola around here , but some by the big farmers. I let nature do its thing , and we gave enough sprays in our food already. So in a couple weeks it should be ready to harvest. Dry for canola 10 or less. I expect to get around 35 bu. Per acre here. Cant speculate to high, but higher is always better.

tomstractorsandtoys · Sep 21, 2023

I enjoy seeing how different areas farm. There are still a few people that swath oats in my area. Tom

Butch(OH) · Sep 21, 2023

Good thing you didn't plow it up when you were told it wouldn't make a crop eh? Canola was tried here maybe 20? years ago but it didn't catch on.

Absent Minded Farmer · Sep 21, 2023

Wow, it looks like you made hedgerows out of that stand. Will you roll those?

Did Versatile make a conditioner unit for that machine?

Mike

rustred · Sep 21, 2023

once it goes through the combine and chopper there will be nothing left of it. yes, versatile made a conditioner for them for cutting hay.

55 50 Ron · Sep 21, 2023

The first thought I had when reading your entry was, Oh No, rustred had a windstorm go through and flattened his canola. Happy to see that wasn't what was meant! Would canola withstand a windstorm?

The land looks very level. Is that true?

What kind of combine will we maybe see?

55 50 Ron · Sep 21, 2023

Paul,

That's an excellent description of why swathing is done. Swathing was pretty much mandatory in days before weed spraying was used. Even weed spraying usually didn't get all the weeds, so swathing still happened.

rustred · Sep 21, 2023

Once it is dry in the swath it is light and wind would blow it all over creation. The land is fairly flat. No hills. I got an old new Holland TR85 I would like to try it out if I get it fixed in time.

Leroy · Sep 23, 2023

I looked into doing it but that year just did not fit in. Next year was going to try but the buyer was no longer to be found. Don't know what happened to him. He was about 30-40 mile from me. And did still have a combine that could have handled it.

rusty6 · Sep 24, 2023

(quoted from post at 21:10:43 09/21/23) Once it is dry in the swath it is light and wind would blow it all over creation. The land is fairly flat. No hills. I got an old new Holland TR85 I would like to try it out if I get it fixed in time.

Usually when you swath it green like that it tends to stick together very well. Especially with some rain on it. I pull a roller behind the swather on mine. You did good to get all that through the versatile. I had a terrible time getting mine through the Macdon John deere. And of course its proving just as hard to get through the combine when I hit those swather lumps. Lots of standing canola here been dessicated but not quite ready or else very tough straw and still green.

canola is horizontal.

rustred

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