Agricultural News
Canola Swathing underway in Canadian County
Wed, 18 May 2011 14:16:56 CDT
These two 150 acre winter canola fields, located south of El Reno, are being swathed with a 36' John Deere draper header. The draper header in these images has a swathing option (rear trapdoor) for making windrows.
This combine is pulling a Koenders swather roller, which is made in Canada and sells for around $3,500. It was initially designed for harvesting beer barley in north America and Canada. However, it works extremely well for harvesting our winter canola by pushing the canola stalks down into the canola stubble for stabilization and anchoring the crop.
This packing operation prevents windrowed canola from blowing around before it can be picked up for combining. Also, swathing and windrowing winter canola protects the pods from shatter, while allowing uniform dry down for better thrashing and harvesting of the crop.
The Koenders swather roller is attached to the combine using a 'farmer fabricated' hitch designed to pull the roller off to the side but directly over the windrowed canola flowing out of the draper header.
Once the canola completes ripening in 5-10 days, Zum Mallen Farms will use a pickup attachment on their combine header to pick up the windrows to finish harvesting this year's winter canola crop. The time required to dry the crop down sufficiently for harvesting is totally weather dependent.
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