RIVIERE QUE BARRE, Alta. – Gary Van Brabant knew there had to be a better way to check how much grain was lost out the back of a combine.
Like many other farmers, he used to run through heavy stubble beside a moving combine trying to toss a plastic pan under the machine.
“Before, I was always nervous I would run over someone,” said Van Brabant, who invented the Combine Drop Screen with his brother, Norm.
“It’s scary running beside the tires.”
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With fewer people at home to help check and adjust the combine, the family invented a simple drop screen that mounts under the combine to give an accurate grain loss picture.
“It’s quick, it’s simple and it’s easy to mount,” said Van Brabant, who farms with his sons Mike and Steven.
“It was made out of necessity.”
The combine drop screen looks like a heavy aluminum window screen that slides into two rails mounted under the combine. It drops onto the stubble when the operator pushes a release button inside the cab.
After the combine has passed over the screen, the driver stops the combine, brushes off the chaff and checks the number of grain kernels on the screen.
If there are more than two kernels of wheat or barley on the five foot square screen, Van Brabant adjusts the combine to reduce the loss.
Van Brabant said making sure the combine was adjusted properly to reduce the amount of lost grain was always a priority for the family.
However, it was hard to continually check losses when it was dark or the clock was ticking.
“It’s hard to check the combine accurately when you’re running behind.”
Some of the larger combines travel at more than 10 km/h, making the job even more difficult.
The first version of the drop screen was invented about 10 years ago as a box mounted under the combine. The Van Brabants abandoned that idea when they discovered kernels bounced out of the box and onto the ground due to swirling wind.
With the screen, the wind blows through and the seed stays on top.
The family of mechanics has since tinkered and refined its model.
Van Brabant said the screen allows combine operators to check the loss by themselves if the crop becomes heavier or lighter or there is a temperature or moisture change.
If Van Brabant senses a change in the field, he radios the other two combine operators to drop their screens and check for grain loss.
“You tend to do it more since it’s so easy to do,” he said.
“You don’t make somebody get behind the combine in the dark.”
Van Brabant said farmers are too reliant on crop loss monitors in the cab. Sometimes monitors can’t distinguish between heavy chaff and grain.
While they work well in most cereals, he said, they don’t work as well in smaller seeded canola.
“People trust the monitor and they shouldn’t. Monitors tell you what you set it to tell you. Until you know what’s going on, how do you know what the monitor is saying?”
Van Brabant said farmers could save thousands of dollars if they got out of their cab and physically checked their grain loss.
He estimated the screens have saved his family at least $50,000 over the past 10 years by reducing crop loss and cutting down on the amount of volunteer grain the following season.
“If you can save one bushel with the screen at 1,000 acres at $10 a bushel, it adds up,” he said. “It saves some people more than that.”
For further information, contact Gary Van Brabant at 780-945-9626.
