Drone View of swathing

My nephew shot some drone video of me swathing wheat on Saturday evening. It turned out quite well on the original right off the card. Its a bit blurry and low quality out here on my rural internet view of youtube.
Swathing spring wheat

wow no straight rows not a place for corn

Something I've never understood: What is the advantage of swathing vs. just combining directly? Seems like more work and more fuel for the same result.

I am amazed at how well you can pickup that down crop. I have swathed down oats and barley, and without crop lifters, you just go over top, only with lifters could I get any. Swathing grain is one of my favourite jobs. I would sure love to have that straw to bed my milk cows with. Bruce

Swathing grain has many benefits. In the case with the video, swathing down crop like that, if you pick up a stone, it falls harmlessly to the bottom of the windrow, and the combine pickup will not pickup the stone. If you where direct cutting that grain, and keeping the head low to cut the crop, sooner or later a rock will go into the combine. If your crop has matured unevenly or has green weeds or under seeded hay coming up in the grain, direct cutting will be a nightmare, plugging the cylinder/rotor with green crap that wouldn’t go through. If the crop is swathed a few days to weeks ahead, all the green stuff dries down and goes through the combine no problem. Also years ago combine heads were not as big as now. And you could swath with a 20 foot swather , and pickup the crop with a combine that perhaps only came with a 12-14 foot head. This was of particular advantage in the prairie crops which became of rain fall yielded much few bushel per acre than thicker heavy crops grown in the east. Swathing doesn’t take much fuel, and has little frustration, compared to trying to push crop through a large lumbering combine in harvest conditions I described.

I'm amazed too, especially with the bat reel. I doubt there would be anything to combine if wheat sat all winter here

There was 40 acres of oats in the crop rotation on the 160 acres I grew up on. We used the straw, the actual oats we added to hog feed to reduce the amount of shell corn we had to buy. We needed 20 acres of hay for baled hay for the cattle, and 20 acres of hog pasture. Combined originally with two #62 IH pull type combines, both with the Continental 69 cid engine. One to run, one for parts. A Deere #25 replaced the IH's, but still had canvases. Took a while but about 1968 Dad managed to talk the neighbor, a salesman at the local Deere dealer out of his #30 Deere. Every year, about a week before oats were ready to combine a big thunderstorm would blow thru. And good oats would be flat on the ground, 1st gear with TA back on SM-TA or 450 was too fast. Where oats were light and where standing you could run in 3rd gear!
One neighbor always made a BIG deal about baling his oat straw quickly because it made better bedding for his hogs. So one year we had 20 acres right next to the buildings, I had enough time to hook up the hay rakes and after unloading a load of oats in the crib I would rake a couple rounds around the oat field, two 7 ft rakes hooked together, raked first pass "IN", second pass "Out" to complete window, 28 ft in a windrow, only about 12 rounds around the field. Dad only cut the oats right under the heads of the oats, barely enough straw to see with just a single 7 ft pass with the rake. I was done raking about a half hour after Dad was done combining.

Thanks for the explanation, Bruce. Learn something every day if you're not careful...

That is not just a bat reel, its the Macdon UII pickup reel with steel teeth on every bat. Makes a huge difference in a flat crop like that. Yes, I could have just pulled in with the straight header on the combine and tried to do it in one operation but I'm betting it would have taken longer and more frustration and wear and tear than the way I did it. Like Bruce said, the swather handled it better, got more crop, shorter ladder to climb down and up if something did clog the cutterbar. I know this because I did straight cut most of my other flattened wheat last October and have not forgotten the frustration and irritation of having to crawl slowly with the combine and still miss grain. Picking up wet badger and mole hills that would pile up in the feeder so I'd have to stop and get in there with a little shovel to clean it up. No,, the swather was the best option. That little JD turbo diesel will run two days on a tank of diesel anyway. As for straw, well it was so dry and brittle that I could fly at nearly double my normal combine speed to put it through. Came out the back like dust. You couldn't have baled it.

In the area where I grew up almost all grain was swathed, the explanation my dad gave me was the heads were ripe for combining, but the straw was still too green. We raised mostly grass seed, oats, wheat, barley, and flax.

(quoted from post at 06:10:55 06/03/20) In the area where I grew up almost all grain was swathed, the explanation my dad gave me was the heads were ripe for combining, but the straw was still too green.

Click to expand...

Its more to even out the ripening. You can see we have high spots and low land. The hilltops can be good and dry, ready to combine. Yet the low spots are grass green. Swath it down and a few days of hot sun will have it all ready to combine.

Doing a really nice job!

I'm not sure if you mentioned it, but hopefully there's some grain to harvest. I was also wondering if you used guard extensions. I put those spring loaded extensions on a JD 6620 for downed oats, well some of the patches, was a very nice crop and those extensions were worth every penny.

(quoted from post at 15:15:13 06/03/20) I'm not sure if you mentioned it, but hopefully there's some grain to harvest. I was also wondering if you used guard extensions. I put those spring loaded extensions on a JD 6620 for downed oats, well some of the patches, was a very nice crop and those extensions were worth every penny.

Click to expand...

Yes, the wheat was combined the next day. About half the yield it should have been. And yes, those crop lifters would probably have paid for themselves on this field. I have a set for the combine header but they don't quite fit the swather so I went without. Might pick up a set for next harvest.