Dave H (MI) here is the way to harvest Soys

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A shot with the row head. Note that each row has six inches of flex independent of the row next to it, the caveat is you gotta stay on the row or you lay the beans down flat instead of that handy gathering belt bringing them. Snapping the pic probably cost me a few feet. Tom
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I have ran one that was adapted to an IH 1460. I cut milo with it and that seemed fairly forgiving as to staying on the row.

Not many left in these parts. I remember it being a heavy sucker !

I doubt that a draper would be any more efficient though. They do a great job.
 
Works well for that row width, but a lot of soys are grown in 15 or 7 inch rows or
solid stands, making a flex head more adaptable. Doubt that I could drive straight
enough to make that header work for me anyways! Ben
 
Is that a corn head? How does that work? Snap rolls pull the pods off or ????

Not trying to be a wise guy, just never thought of that alternative. I have a couple choices...well not anymore because I am not going to try to swath in this mud we have now...but it was an option a few weeks ago.
 
Mine are in 30" rows. Hank Kimball was all for it, but not like I had a choice. The slip clutch on the drill I bought from an old liar south of Lansing was bushed over pretty good so I had to use the planter. That was back in the day you could get something like that by me. This year alone I have repaired three slip clutches...now it is the first thing I look at when I buy something.
 
A neighbor had one years ago on a 6600. Seemed to work pretty good. Haven't seem one of those in years.
 
No, it is a row crop soy bean head, has belts instead of gathering chains, that grab the stalk and carry it in. I have only seen one or two and I think only
Deere made them, probably 25 years ago. Someone else will know more than I do about them Ben
 
Have never seen one and a lot of soybeans raised in this part of Ohio. Why buy a third head for beans. You needed a standard head for wheat that worked as good for beans and then the corn head.
 
Always amazes me that something comes down the pike and I never even heard of one. Not that I am the great expert, but I do spend a lot of time trying to learn. Seems like it would have come up. Very interesting, though!
 
It is a Deere row crop head, and was used for rowed beans, milo, sunflowers, etc. It used a lot of common parts with a corn chopper head. I think Deere was the only company that made one...

The idea was to reduce field loss, and they did do that. I had a friend who had one on a 6600, and he claimed he could run a gear faster than with a flex platform, and there was a lot less shatter loss.

In the day, it was not uncommon to see them on a red or silver combine as well.

I think they left the market in the 90's after about 20 years of production. As it became more common to plant beans with a drill or in 15" rows, the head saw less market. the last I knew, there was still a place in KS that rebuilt and marketed them, probably more for milo and sunflowers.
 
A neighbor used to have a 6 row on his L3 Gleaner...There used to be several of these heads
in my area..They were great for milo..
 
I only saw one in the neighborhood where I grew up. They had it on a 7700. Don't remember how many rows it had. Besides the low loss from shatter, I believe these row crop heads offered steady and uniform feeding so you could push the combine right up to its full capacity, too. No wads running into the machine.
 
Yes, I have seen one used once, as I was driving by a field a few years back. They were harvesting soybeans, and I glanced over and thought
what the heck.. a corn head for beans. Then I asked a neighboring farmer and he told me about the john deere heads for beans or row crops
other than corn. Wish I could see it up close. How exactly does it cut off the plant?
 
It cuts the plants off with a rotating disk that uses sickle sections as a blade. The disk squishes the stem between the rotating sections and a stationary knife.
 
Farmer I worked for in/just after high school (longer ago than I care to admit) had a 653A row crop head adapted to a 760 Massey combine. It worked well, especially in terraces.

On the downside, the thing was maintenance intensive. I remember working on the belts and rotary knives quite a bit in the off season. Boss was a stickler for off season maintenance, so we had little downtime during harvest.

We used it mainly for beans. For milo, we used a cutter bar with milo guards unless the milo was down.

I believe someone around is rebuilding them, including rebuilding them into a 12 row version (I believe the biggest available from Deere was 8 row).
 
There were quite a few of those heads around here back in the day. They had the noted versatility shortcomings but the guys that had them kept them up and going until round up ready weedless beans and narrow rows came in. Advantages in weedy beans was leaving the bulk of the weeds standing, field looked a bit weird when done but a trip with the batwing fixed that. They also missed the majority of the rocks, a down side was when they did grab one the wrong way you were in for some repairs.
 
They musta come out about the time of the 6600 combines? I guess I never saw one operate but saw several around the neighborhood. Just
about the time they came out, beans around my neighborhood changed from 38 inch to 30 inch to drilled all in a 5 year span, and so as much
as folks liked those row crop heads and as good as they worked, they became terribly inflexible for working on different neighbors beans as
everyone had a different row spacing.

So they came and went pretty quickly.

Funny, now most of us are back to 30 inch bean rows, turns out they work as good as anything over a 10 year average.
 
I have been thinking about one for our 105 or 95. I just hate beans wrapping up on the reel ends and we plant our beans with a 4 row 30" 7000 planter. Tom
 
I've bought a 454A with a bish adapter for an F2, but have not used it yet. Friend wanted an 8-row for his 1688 in case milo went down. Found one on one of the Internet auction sites. Seems that there are still several in places like Nebraska, I guess for milo and sunflowers.
 
Tom, I think one could be modified for 4 row 30", but I think the smallest was a 454, or 4 row wide. JR Hobbs wrote about having a 653 (6 row narrow) on a 95, so it can be done.
 
jd made a 453 4row 30" head but it will be like trying to find a needle in a haystack. they also made a 12 row 30". And at one time you could still special order them from jd.
 
OLD smokey; I started with a 453A it was factory.

Tom; I might know where it is, can check if you want. If you have the quik tach feeder house it will be a slam dunk. Tom
 

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