We were having a discussion the other day and was wondering about how they harvest up north. See alot of combines with a belt type header and its gathering up all ready cut and windrow wheat, barley, etc. What do you cut it with and why?
 
Back in the day, farmers in ND used swathers. Originally they used pull type swathers until Seld Propelled swathers came into the marketplace. After SP swathers, new varieties of grain came out that can be straight cut with the combine so swathers became an "unneeded" piece of equipment in a lot of areas.

My brother in ND retired about 6 years ago, but he still has his large pull-type JD swather and the old Case SP swather because nobody wants them anymore. The old Case has a Case 4-cylinder water cooled engine that was put on to replace the underpowered original Wisconsin air cooled engine.

Back in threshing era, it was common to shock the grain and leave it to cure for 30 days before thrashing. With swathers, the grain could usually be combined after about 3 days curing in the swath. Straight cutting is instantaneous that saves time and fuel.
 
A big reason we used swathers instead of direct combining was because of weeds and low green growth in the field...especially if we wanted to bale the straw, we wanted to cut lower to the ground. A few days of drying and the crop went thru the combine much easier.
 
Its a practice most try to avoid. You're making a 2 passes instead of one, you have more dirt/rocks run through the combine, plus it never fails to get an inch of rain after the grain in windrowed which causes sprout damage. We swathed back in the day because certain varieties of wheat would shell out in the wind when fully ripe.
 

We still swath our oats, we don't plant a lot, but use it for creep feed for the calves on pasture. Oats would shell out if you tried to leave it dry and take it straight. Also if you don't have air bins, swathing is the poor mans option for drying grain down.
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Where I live we swath so we can cut and combine sooner, as well as the other reasons said. You can swath oats as soon as the heads turn and it will dry in the swath and be ready to combine almost a week sooner. Our rainy season gets real close to small grain harvest so we need to push it to beat the rain.
 
As with everything else, swathing has it's advantages and disadvantages. Advantages are earlier combining as the crop can be cut 10 days before it is dead ripe and combined 3 or 4 days later. Any green material is dried and the combine works much smoother and better because it feeds so much evener. A good swath sits up on the stubble and can turn a lot of rain and dries from both the top and the bottom. The correct time to swath is August when the weather is warmer and drier. If it gets to September, take your chances with the crop standing. As far as a swath goes, I'd rather have it than standing grain that gets hailed and wind flattened on the ground. Although it takes another trip over the field, I always felt the easier combining more than made up for that....Ron
 
We guessed that it was done for drying. Here in the south all we do is combine. You allways see pictures of it in the windrow but never seeing it being done. Do they have a group that goes ahead of the custom combiners or is it soemthing that would be done on a indivual basis.
 
here is one of my draper swathers I use to windrow grain, this way for baling the grain for hay but I have done it for grain as well, as other said it does help it dry with less shatter, I also did it one year due to a large amount of green weeds in the grain so the weeds would dry down so it could be threshed clean
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A little info. If you are picking up a lot of dirt and rocks it means you cutting your grain to close to the ground. You need stubble to hold the grain up. Will also dry a lot quicker with taller stubble. Another suggestion Never run you grain pickup too close to the ground. I have swathed thousands of acres-just keep the pickup so it has a good grip on the swath not touching the ground. That will end a lot of the dirt and rock problems.
 
In the southern Nebraska panhandle, and NE Colorado high plains we still swath proso Millet. Some are now stripperheading some. The problem of harvesting it standing is getting it dry. Also when it does dry standing too much shells out. This year because of so much rain and wind either swathing or standing to much was lost. Picture is of me picking up swathed oats in about 1960. (80 bu. per ac. )
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I swath my wheat. Most guys in this area have gone to straight cutting everything except canola which is still swathed because it shells out when ripe. The reasons I swath yet include starting harvest a little earlier, I don't have aeration bins which you often need with straight cutting, and I don't have a straight header for my combine.

Swathing a bit on the green side helps when sawflies are a problem, and there's usually green heads in low spots that put green kernals and bits of green weeds in the bin which can result in problems of heating and bugs if not aerated.

I use a 25 ft. pulltype swather (pictured).

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Jim, nice looking crop you are swathing there. I think many here got turned off straight cutting in early September of 65 when a wet snow fall flattened all the standing crops and they were a nightmare to try and combine. No hydraulic reel control or pickup fingers. There were a lot of lifter guards sold that fall. Bent headers, broken guards and sickles. Not so bad with today's combines as we can get under a lodged crop and pick it up enough to cut. Wheat is mostly straight cut here now. Many will dessicate a week or so before combining to even out the ripening. Canola is all swathed . Few guys tried it straight but with our high winds you can lose both ways. Shelling out a ripe standing crop or else the swaths blow away in the high winds. I've seen both.
This was me in 1988.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SBmQOzj0n8
 

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