I did. I am retired now. Had a 15 foot Versatile 400 swather. and picked the windrows up using a Sund pickup. I have used other brands also.
 
Yes, I do. have a JD 800 with 12 ft. head. Melroe pickup on a CaseIH 10 ft. dummy head. My p.u. has the alum. belts which work fine but I had a newer Melroe with the rubber belts for my Massey combine and it was so much quieter when running. Don't make a lot of difference though as I only do about 50 acres a year.
 
Did you either one swath wheat or rye with them? If so how did that work speeding up your drying time?
 
still use one... swath 2-300 acres of wheat and oats this past summer, staight cut the peas...
 
I swath all my wheat (except for this past fall) with a 25 ft. pull-type swather. 2014 was so wet I couldn't get anywhere with the swather so I broke down and bought a straight header for my combine. It worked okay but I expect I'll keep swathing in coming years. Most everyone dessicates and straight cuts around here but I like to cut early and let the wheat dry down in the swath. Wheat here tends to fall over when it gets real ripe, sometimes due to sawflies but it seems to happen as a matter of course, necessitating cutting the wheat real short. One downside of swathing is if you get a wet spell the wheat will bleach out and if bad enough, start sprouting. This is hard red spring which doesn't sprout as easily as winter wheat.
 
Yes we sometimes swath and pickup. We run a Deere 800 and a 105 Deere combine. I tried to swath my rye but it was so tall and thick it would pile up and plug before feeding back thru on the swather.
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Yep, each year on oats. An International 175 swather with a 10ft cut head and a 960 Case combine. Both are always kept inside and work great for small grains. East central MN.
 
If you had weeds one would be necessary. Swathed some wheat and vetch one time and won't do that again. The fellow wanted the seed for use in chopping for silage. Get the reels to stop wrapping then look back and see the windrow being dragged by the windrower. Cut more with my pocket knife that day than with the windrower!
 
Back in the day dad and me helping or bugging him, swathed rye, winter wheat, hard red spring wheat,and oats.

One year he swathed severely hail damaged soybeans, but that's another story.

I only grow oats now for small grains, swath it.

I've only ever straight combined a half a field of oats in my life, was a very draught year. Was slow going, probably coulda used a new sickle on the combine. Anyhow it rained so I got the swather out to finish. I tend to always have some clover or alfalfa for a plow down cover crop under the oats, too much green stuff to straight combine.....

Went from a 10 foot owatonna swather so old it didnt have a serial number to a JD 800 14' and a dummy header on the Gleaner F now M3.

Rye was tough to get through that old swather, too tall a crop, lot of straw. Otherwise swathing and combining worked good.


Paul
 

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