Harvesting wheat, not cutting it?

W_B

Well-known Member
Hard red winter wheat is being harvested in my area, but I saw something that looked very strange. Most guys are doing the traditional grain head that that cuts the top off and runs it through the combine and straw and chaff out the back. One large field near me has been harvested, but not cut. The stalks are as long as they ever were but there are is no grain at the top. Is there some sort of new vacuum harvester out there now? We've been on vacation and didn't see what was running through the field and it definitely has not been cut and there is no chaff that I can see.

Anybody know what might have been used?
 
There's a few shelbourne heads around
here.

Biggest advantage is on a dry year it
conserves the moisture in the soil by
keeping the ground covered.

Biggest dis-advantage is on a wet year
it conserves the moisture in the soil
by keeping the ground covered.

Also most combines today are rotaries
and leave no straw behind the combine
for baling. By using a shelbourne
head, you leave all the straw standing
which you can then swath and bale.
 
Thanks for the responses! Probably haven't seen one around here before this due to our area not being a big wheat or cereal grain area.
 
There were a couple of new (never used) stripper
heads on Craig's list here. One is a 2012 unit and
one is a 2006 unit. Seems they haven't caught on. I
don't know of anyone using one. Our JD dealer
throws a hissy fit when someone puts a different
head on their machine. I should say the combine
techs do. One was out to the farm a week ago and
had just left a farm with a different header on a JD.
He was still fuming.
 
My neighbor runs a 32-ft Shelbourne stripper on his new Deere combine and I asked him this very
question. His response was that he has to slow down a little but he claims it combs through downed
wheat well. I have noticed, however, that a few weeks after harvest (if it rains) his fields have
a green tint everywhere whereas other fields just have green behind where the machine was at. It
suggests to me that there is some extra header loss going on but without all the straw in the
machine there is maybe less rotor and shoe loss. He really blows through the fields, looks to be
around 8 mph. It doesn't take him long to knock off an 80.
 
No-tillers have gone to using stripper headers to get the straw to stand better. That is for guys that summer fallow.
 
The last 10 years or so that I farmed, we used Shelbourn stripper headers to harvest spring wheat and flax.
They do a remarkable job and make a small combine think it is a big dog, really increases capacity with no straw going through the combine.

They are good in broken down crop, often allowing saving 95% of the crop.

We boughht the first stripper to harvest flax, so not to have to deal with tough flax straw.
The JD 750 drills worked great to seed into tall standing flax or spring wheat straw.
a195460.jpg

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Stripper harvesters are not new. Sunshine had them in Australia in thew later 1800s. The first Sunshine T front self-propelled Auto-header dates from 1924. The model KT shown was in production from 1937 to 1946.
a195464.jpg

a195465.jpg

a195466.jpg

a195468.jpg
 
Thank you athol carr .
There is a Sunshine Harvester at the WMSTR steam thresher show at Rolag Minnesota

I did not realize it was made in Australia.
 

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