How many combines do you need if you’re harvesting 4,000 acres? Like many equipment capacity issues, this straight forward question is tricky to answer.
Following a difficult harvest last fall, many producers are re-evaluating their harvesting capacity. When your combine or combines need to roll again in the spring, potentially delaying seeding operations, it isn’t a happy situation.
In some areas, producers successfully harvest 4,000 acres with a single large late model combine. Harvest might start in early August with peas and then lentils, wrapping up with durum and canola. Long harvest days and a long harvest window means one machine can cover a great deal of ground.
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In other regions, producers are targeting only 2,000 or 2,500 acres for each combine. Harvest doesn’t start until late August or early September, harvest days are typically shorter and heavy crops can mean slow going.
The situation may be different for those running older model combines. A 2,000 or 2,500 acre farm may have a couple of combines that are 10 or even 20 years old. The repair and break-down risk is mitigated by having two rather than just one, and the capital investment can be a great deal less than a single newer combine.
The drawback in this approach can be two-fold: the labour needed to keep two outfits running and the potentially higher repair bill that comes with older machines.
Whatever your approach, when a year like 2016 comes along, harvest capacity can be hijacked by rain, slow-maturing crops and an early October snowstorm.
Many other factors beyond the number and size of combines enter into the equation. Aeration capacity is important early in the harvest season, and drying capacity can be important later on. Many producers who never had dryers before made that acquisition last fall.
Grain bagging can add greatly to harvest capacity, especially when land is many kilometres from the bins. Grain carts have become common, although I sometimes wonder if some producers would be better off spending the money on another combine instead, even if it was an older unit.
Unfortunately, all the equipment and planning in the world might not be adequate when the weather doesn’t co-operate. While we’re all advised to reduce our stress levels, maintaining a certain sense of urgency about harvest can be useful.
Do you start rolling as soon as the grain is dry enough to put into aeration or do you wait a couple days so that aeration isn’t necessary? Starting early can be a good decision if the weather turns against you. In addition to helping overall progress, quality can be preserved.
Are you prepared to move to a different area or change to a different crop in order to keep rolling? This requires more work, but depending on the circumstances, it can be the correct course of action.
If you have neighbours or relatives that finish harvest ahead of you or have some downtime between crops, do you accept their offers of help so that you can get done quicker? Too much pride to accept help can end up being costly.
Many times we rush to complete harvest and then wonder why we pushed so hard. The weather remains good, and there would have been lots of time to work at a more leisurely pace.
But you never know. Without the unusually favourable weather in November, the amount of crop overwintering would be huge. Producers will remember that for a long time.
