MILDEN, Sask., A less-expensive harvesting alternative continues to remain tantalizingly out of reach, but a farmer who tested the new harvester this fall said the prize is getting closer.
Ian McPhadden said the $185,000 McLeod Harvester processed only a small amount of grain on his 5,000 acre farm this season because of mechanical failures.
However, McPhadden said he is optimistic that Manitoba inventor Bob McLeod is on the right track.
The McLeod Harvester breaks the traditional combine in two – a coarse grain thresher and a stationary grain mill.
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While the machines aren’t much cheaper than traditional combines, McLeod hopes the system will pay for itself by putting more grain in farmers’ bins and leaving less in the fields.
The harvester collects heads and leaves only straw in the field.
The coarse harvest, also called graff, is then trucked to the farmyard and processed in a grain mill that separates the grain from chaff and weed seeds.
McLeod told about 60 farmers at a meeting in Milden on Oct. 3 that two to three percent of grain harvested by conventional combines is carried over the back of the combine’s sieves and straw walkers where it falls back on the field.
“We lose nothing,” he said.
“And the grain is what we’re out there to get.”
The farmers, who also got a chance to see the McLeod system in action, were told improvements have been made to the mill.
“This part of the system is very reliable now,” McLeod said.
“In previous incarnations, the bottleneck has always been in the mill. We’ve removed some of that (equipment) and now we can process the grain as fast as the trucks can bring it in.”
The mill uses a stationary thresher based on a New Holland TR99 combine rotor and shoe.
Less time, lower cost
Earlier versions of the mill used a grain cleaner or fan mill. While it yielded a grain sample that was said to be of export standard, the process took time and an additional operator. It also added “10 grand” to the price tag.
“The new mill just needs the truck driver to load it and it runs by itself after that,” McPhadden said.
In a demonstration at McPhadden’s farm, the mill yielded a grain sample similar to that of a well-adjusted combine thresher.
The mill blows chaff and screenings through a pipe into a pile. The chaff and screenings pile is three times as big as the grain pile when harvesting wheat and “many times” bigger than the grain pile when harvesting lentils. Barley piles are about equal.
Removing the chaff and screenings from the field keeps weed seeds off the land, which some studies have shown reduces the need for herbicides.
They can also be sold as livestock feed.
“I don’t have a market for the chaff yet,” McPhadden said. “We don’t have any cattle. But I think once I have some (feed value) tests done, it will sell soon enough.”
McLeod said his system costs less to operate than a combine and can run on a smaller power unit.
McPhadden runs his machine with a 150 horsepower, two-wheel drive tractor. The mill operates on a 400 amp, single-phase electrical feed.
Improvements to the harvester include a new high clearance swing arm hitch, an integrated grain cart and threshing cylinder and a cylinder change from rotary to conventional design, based on the John Deere 9600.
“The system works, but we have only managed to take off 300 acres with it,” McPhadden said. “The problems came from poor workmanship (on the harvester).”
McLeod remained positive despite the long list of minor breakdowns.
“I’m happy when something breaks,” he said.
“We are still beta testing this thing. When something breaks, it points to a weakness and then we fix it. Next year. Next year it will hum.”
For more information, visit the website at www.mcleodharvest.com.
