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Ian McCartney, farms manager, Hutton Wandesley Farms Co, Long Marston, York. 1300 to 1500 acres of wheat, barley, oilseed rape & peas.
Combine details: 9880 STS equipped with 625 (25ft) cutting platform (standard spec).
We bought a new STS 9880 combine at the end of 2003, on the recommendation of our John Deere dealer, to replace our existing 2264 and 2064 models. Although we used to harvest a few more acres at one time – we grew a lot of grass for seed and also did some contracting – this new machine copes easily with the current acreage.
If anything we now have over capacity, even with a 25ft header. The real reason we bought this size of combine is that our wheat, spring barley and pea crops are all ready at near enough the same time, so we have 1100 or 1200 acres to combine as quickly as we can. The new 9880 has done that this year, no problem at all – our whole harvest was completed in 20 days, with a total of only 152 drum hours.
By contrast the 2004 harvest was very wet, and most days we didn’t start until late in the afternoon – we probably only had three or four full days harvesting wheat throughout the summer, and most of the time we were working until 1am. Often the combine would be up to its axles in mud, but it never got stuck and would always back out of a wet hole.
Last year we were able to travel a lot quicker, because the straw was rotten ripe due to the wet weather, but we still found we weren’t losing anything over the back. We averaged 9.3 acres an hour in 2004, whereas this year, working hard and chopping most of the straw, we’ve still managed around 8.8 acres an hour across all crops.
We easily combined up to 500 tonnes of wheat in a day – 45 to 50 tonnes an hour is probably the optimum rate. Our best day was in oilseed rape, when we cut 120 acres in one day, yielding an average of 3.85 tonnes an acre. We also achieved very good samples.
That’s primarily why we chose the 25ft header equipped with a Zurn extension for direct cutting oilseed rape, especially for tall, thick crops. Our farm layout means we can get through from one field to another more easily with the narrower header, and as the combine is not GreenStar equipped, this also makes it easier to drive.
Last year, because of the conditions, we could run the combine virtually like a forage harvester, because the engine started to die down before we got any losses over the back of the combine, so that was our sign to ease off the forward speed. This year, we had to run it by the grain loss monitor, which worked fine and allowed us to maintain a decent working speed without any losses.
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