Farmers working on bringing in the harvest are being reminded to monitor their combine performance.
Nathan Gregg, who is now back on the farm, focused on Harvest Loss and Optimization during his career at PAMI (the Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute at Humboldt).
He says it's always important to know what's happening in the field, but also in the combine and suggests monitoring the trash from the combine.
"The best way to do that is to remove the chopper and have a pan that's big enough to collect the full discharge. So we can get a full snapshot of what's really in there, we're not sort of prone to some of the errors that are possible by doing something as simple as scratching on the dirt or throwing a cookie sheet where we might miss more of that loss."
Keeping a close eye on the combine's loss monitor can be a key indicator that something has changed, but he recommends producers use a drop pan.
He says ideally you want to collect the full discharge from the combine so you know what kind of a job you are doing and if any grain is being left behind.
He notes one way to reduce harvest loss is to slow down, since pushing your speed on the combine can come with a cost.
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