Todd Dale
Appearances
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
Well, corn, corn's kind of, I mean, it's the same type of thing because a lot of the time you're killing the plant by running the combine through it. Same thing with the soybeans. There's a lot of green left, especially early on. So corn, The other thing that really helps with corn is a lot of air, a lot of air volume on your cleaning system.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
So there's several different theories out there with setting a cleaning system for corn. I subscribe a little bit more to the theory of if I'm setting a combine and I want clean grain, if I'm putting in my own bins, I don't want a lot of cob. I don't want a lot of stalk. I want that stuff to get out of the combine. All I want is whole healthy kernels.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
So if it takes me running a fan speed of 1250 or 1300, and I can keep it in a combine at that, I'm good. I like that. The more air, the better. If I have to chaffer clearance, I want it to be as far closed as it can possibly be because that's going to minimize my trash and damaged material that's getting in there.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
The one thing that a lot of people disagree on or don't agree with or whatever is running your sieve. A lot of people think you need to run your sieve, your bottom sieve, wide open to allow airflow. And while that may be true that it does allow more airflow,
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
If I'm getting little chunks of cob or if I'm getting little stalk pieces, things like that in my sample, and I can get rid of that by closing my sieve down and running it through the return again, I'm doing it. Because unless it's damaging a high percentage of kernels again, and I know that that damage is coming from the tailings and the return, I don't see the negative of it.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Strategic Succession Planning & Profit Growth with Brain Trust Ag
Just probably Google Estes Concaves. I mean, it's going to be, it'll pop up and everything. Our website's estesperformanceconcaves.com. All the information that you should, I mean, a lot that you need to get started on the investigation process, if it's something you want to move forward with, and then give one of us a call. We've got phone numbers listed on there. We'd be happy to talk with you.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Make Better Farm Decisions with Predictive Analytics
That's what you're hoping to do. So a lot of the time, closing a concave clearance down to match the circumference of the ear is what you want to do. That's one place where our XPR bar will shine is you can get away with running some tighter clearances like an 18 or 20 millimeter gap on your rotor clearance. And a rotor speed of right around 300 RPMs.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Make Better Farm Decisions with Predictive Analytics
You want to keep that gap as tight as you can without damaging the kernel. So again, I'll go back to the cracking point theory of the grain. It's always good to know at what point your combine is too aggressive for your grain. So when is it cracking a high volume or a high percentage grain? of kernels. And at that, that setting's no good.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Make Better Farm Decisions with Predictive Analytics
You've got to go more open from there, or you've got to slow your rotor down slightly. One of the two, and sometimes I wish I could tell you every time what the secret is, but sometimes for me, it's slowing my rotor down 20 more RPMs. For you, it might be opening your clearance up two more millimeters. It's just hard to know exactly which one is going to be the correct way to do it.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Make Better Farm Decisions with Predictive Analytics
But basically, you want to just minimize the potential movement of a corn cob once it's in the rotor cage.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Make Better Farm Decisions with Predictive Analytics
Just probably Google Estes Concaves. I mean, it's going to be, it'll pop up and everything. Our website's estesperformanceconcaves.com. All the information that you should, I mean, a lot that you need to get started on the investigation process, if it's something you want to move forward with, and then give one of us a call. We've got phone numbers listed on there. We'd be happy to talk with you.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Make Better Farm Decisions with Predictive Analytics
Well, corn's kind of, I mean, it's the same type of thing because a lot of the time you're killing the plant by running the combine through it. Same thing with the soybeans. There's a lot of green left, especially early on. So you want to minimize the potential movement of the cob once it's
Farm4Profit Podcast
Make Better Farm Decisions with Predictive Analytics
got itself into your concave cage so if you can imagine you know you've got you've got a round ear of corn a round cob round rotor rounded elements on or rotor bars you don't want that cob to be able to like roll and twist and things like that you want it to stay like as linear to the rotor as you can so you want it to almost be pinned between like the rotor and the concave in a perfect world and i understand we're not you know that that's an unrealistic expectation but
Farm4Profit Podcast
Josh Linville - Fertilizer Market Breakdown: Nitrogen, Phosphate, and Potash
I think it went really well. So we had quite a bit of feedback on our new system, and it was all as good as it's been with the new XPR3s for the wheat harvest. And we're still – I'm actually right now in South Dakota where they're just getting into their spring wheat crop. So the winter wheat's done and harvested, and we're far enough north here from –
Farm4Profit Podcast
Josh Linville - Fertilizer Market Breakdown: Nitrogen, Phosphate, and Potash
This line that I'm at now, about central South Dakota from here north, it's pretty much all spring wheat. And then we're just about right on the line where they do get some winter wheat. Winters aren't too terribly hard. And several of the folks have said, hey, I saw your guys' last podcast. Tips seem to work all right for them. So I guess we did okay in most regards.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Josh Linville - Fertilizer Market Breakdown: Nitrogen, Phosphate, and Potash
Soybeans are tough. I mean, it's one of the toughest crops to set a combine for because not only that, but think of the difference in soybeans from your last crop. from 15 years ago, how much greener they are now, how much tighter the pods are. how much better the yield is, quite frankly. I mean, it's a better yielding plant than it's ever been.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Josh Linville - Fertilizer Market Breakdown: Nitrogen, Phosphate, and Potash
The seed companies and all their technologies that's gone into these seeds and plants has just unfortunately made it a tough job for combines, especially if you're out there harvesting pre-frost. Big key with soybeans is still trying to keep the machine full.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Josh Linville - Fertilizer Market Breakdown: Nitrogen, Phosphate, and Potash
And typically what happens, we go out there, you hear it grumbling and groaning and you want to kind of back off and you think you're about to plug it and Maybe you are. I don't want to make it seem like combines don't plug because they do. You know, that's kind of the fine line you got to walk and keep in a machine full.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Josh Linville - Fertilizer Market Breakdown: Nitrogen, Phosphate, and Potash
And so one way that I think really helps is by tightening the concave clearance, closing it down more than you think you should. So one thing I'll tell folks if they ask is you're going to need rotor speed. It's going to have to be on a higher gear, whether that's a deer or a case combine. You're going to have to be 600 to maybe even 800 for a rotor speed, which seems like a lot.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Josh Linville - Fertilizer Market Breakdown: Nitrogen, Phosphate, and Potash
And I get it, but that's about what it takes. And then a tighter clearance just to kind of keep that gap full of as many beans as you can. So you can continue the threshing of the grain on grain as well as the grain on steel of the concave. So that gets you into like feed accelerators. Feed accelerators on a deer combine, feeder house speeds on the case.
Farm4Profit Podcast
Josh Linville - Fertilizer Market Breakdown: Nitrogen, Phosphate, and Potash
Run them up, run them fast because those things are...
Farm4Profit Podcast
Josh Linville - Fertilizer Market Breakdown: Nitrogen, Phosphate, and Potash
typically get a bad rap for damaging the grain and damaging the seed but if it's that hard if it's that hard of threshing where you got a lot of green ropey stems vines on the beans maybe some leaves yet run it and fast that's only going to help you it's not going to damage a well-protected seed like it is when it's a green a green plant it's going to just help the feeding process that much more
Farm4Profit Podcast
Josh Linville - Fertilizer Market Breakdown: Nitrogen, Phosphate, and Potash
Just probably Google Estes Concaves. I mean, it's going to be, it'll pop up and everything. Our website's estesperformanceconcaves.com. All the information that you should, I mean, a lot that you'd need to get started on the investigation process, if it's something you want to move forward with, and then give one of us a call. We've got phone numbers listed on there. We'd be happy to talk with you.