A seven-bushel per acre loss on canola can easily cost $40 to $50 per acre. The input costs for fertilizer, fuel and crop protection have already been paid on those lost bushels.
You paid for them and you grew them. But how do you get them into the combine tank?
What would it be worth to you if you could straight cut your canola and harvest some of these bonus bushels on every acre, every year? In some years, that extra yield might represent your profit on the crop.
Read Also
VIDEO: Green Lightning and Nytro Ag win sustainability innovation award
Nytro Ag Corp and Green Lightning recieved an innovation award at Ag in Motion 2025 for the Green Lightning Nitrogen Machine, which converts atmospheric nitrogen into a plant-usable form.
An extra 7.1 bu. canola yield was documented in 2004 field trials at Grandview, Man.
Using a Biso CX100 straight cut attachment, Grandview farmer Robert Breckner harvested 21.5 bu. of Invigor 2733. The swathed part of the field yielded 14.4 bu.
The part of the field harvested with a conventional straight-cut header yielded 18 bu. per acre. Frost in 2004 significantly reduced canola yields in the Grandview area.
The Canola Council of Canada conducted the Biso trials. Each of the three harvest methods consisted of four passes, nine metres wide, down an 800-metre stretch of field.
In the 2003 Canola Council trials on the Grandview farm, the Biso straight-cut attachment gave an average 3.6 bu. advantage over swathing and conventional straight cutting.
In 2004, the Biso header was also field tested at Rugby, North Dakota, by Northern Canola Growers. Those trials gave a 4.7 bu. advantage over swathing. No conventional straight-cut header was compared in these trials.
Breckner imports the Biso from his native home, Austria, where straight cutting is the normal way of handling the typical 70 bu. canola crops. He now has two years experience with the attachment, harvesting 1,200 canola acres. He said a four-bu. increase can be expected with the straight-cut attachment.
While the bonus bushels are nice, he said the most important factor is that you no longer need to risk losing your entire canola crop while it’s down in the swath.
“My first canola crop here in Canada was in 2001. We swathed it, then the wind came up and blew the whole crop away. We lost it all,” said Breckner.
“In Europe, all farms use some type of front attachment for straight cutting their canola, so I knew it could be done and that the attachments were available.”
That winter he visited four German companies and one Austrian company to see who had the best equipment. He felt the Biso was the strongest unit, so that’s the one he imported to Canada.
“It seems everybody wants to straight cut their canola, but people are afraid about shattering losses. The Biso has a pan out front that catches the seeds and feeds them up into the combine.”
Increased yield is attributed to the fact that the Biso scoops up canola seeds before they have a chance to hit the ground, but the later harvest date is also a factor.
“We wait for about a week beyond the time when you would normally swath. That’s if you don’t put Reglone on it. This gives the kernels time to get good and plump. Plumper seeds give us a heavier bushel weight. The seeds mature on the standing crop. We don’t see all those shrivelled kernels,” he said.
“On the ground, we find almost no canola seed. You catch it all with the pan that is out there, far ahead of the reel. Anything that drops early falls on the pan and we get to keep it.”
He said the Biso reduces shatter loss compared to a conventional straight cut header because of the vertical side cutters.
“With a regular straight-cut header, we always have about 10 inches (25 centimetres) on the side where we have shattering.
“There’s no way to know for sure how much that loss is because you can’t get the loss into the weigh wagon. With vertical side cutters, we slice through the tangle and put all of those seeds into the combine.”
The Biso is a self-contained attachment with its own hydraulic system. A second pulley bolted to the wobble box drives the hydraulics.
All brackets and hardware bolt into place, with no need for welding or special fabrication. The kits include everything needed. For example, John Deere combines get a longer driveshaft and 1688 combines get a third lift cylinder.
The initial installation takes about three hours on most combines. After that, it’s 20 minutes to install or remove the unit.
With the Biso sticking out 71 cm, weight might be an issue for some people.
“You can feel the weight,” said Breckner. “It feels about the same as if you had a Honey Bee header.”
The 25-foot (7.5 m) model weighs 1,500 pounds (675 kilograms) and sells for $17,900. The 30 foot (nine m) model weighs 1,800 lb. (810 kg) and sells for $19,500.
