When Marcel Kringe was in Europe a few years ago he noticed farmers using a device he hadn’t seen used in Canada.
“It’s very tricky harvest conditions over there and they have agronomists and farm managers running around with these things checking fields to see where they can go next,” he said.
Kringe is the owner of Bushel Plus Ag Products that sells remote controlled drop pans that help growers properly set their combines, and he said he thought this mobile, handheld combine he saw used in Europe would have a good fit in Canada.
So, he sought out its inventor and was able to secure the North American distributor rights of the product, which will be marketed in Canada as the Bushel Plus Mini Combine.
The Mini Combine is a handheld device with a rechargeable battery that has a threshing drum and a concave.
Users pull the device through a standing crop to capture the heads and husks, which are then processed into a grain sample.
The grain sample can then be tested by a separate moisture tester.
Kringe said the Mini Combine can be used for cereals, pulses and canola, but it doesn’t work for corn.
It is possible to test a swathed crop by putting individual heads in the feeding chamber of the machine, but it works best with a standing crop.
Users can collect a sample in about 10 minutes, but Kringe said it’s likely a good idea to get a few samples from a field to get a better idea if a crop is ready to harvest.
The rpm of the thrashing drum can be adjusted to fit different crops and moisture conditions and the device comes with four different concaves for different sizes of crops.
The Mini Combine can save farmers both time and fuel, said Kringe.
“Instead of taking your big combine to the field and the header and the grain truck or the grain cart to test if the grain is ready to harvest, and then realize it’s not ready and you have to deal with the grain in the hopper. You can now use this mini combine,” Kringe said.
He said the device is especially useful for farms that have fields long distances from the home farmyard because users can drive to find out what fields are ready before sending the harvest fleet down the road.
The Mini Combine comes with a carrying case and charger, and retails for about $1,900.
The device recently won a new equipment award at Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show in Woodstock, Ont.
It also sold well at the Ag In Motion outdoor farm show near Saskatoon in July, Kringe said.
For more information, contact Bushel Plus Ag Products.
