About This Episode
Brent Judisch, a John Deere representative and farmer, had already dumped corn the morning of this recording. His lightest farm, 105-day corn planted April 12, came off at 16 to 17 percent moisture with test weights near 57, better than he expected after a year that left his area 11.3 inches below normal precipitation. Beans worry him more: pod counts are down, one and two bean pods outnumber threes, and August brought under an inch of rain.
On setup, Judisch starts at the head. Deck plates set the same across every row, rolls in good shape, and this year a notch or two tighter because stalk and ear size are variable. A level concave matters most inside the machine. On drapers, he says guards get overlooked: the guard is the cutting surface on new heads, it dulls after three or four years in dirt, and green stems wrapping the guard is the tell.
Calibration gets its own list: mass flow vibration first, then temperature, then ten calibration loads, which got Judisch within 50 pounds on a 20,000-pound load. Zero the chaffer and sieve so the numbers on the screen match the actual openings. He also flags wear intervals near 1,000 hours on feederhouse chains and chopper knives, undertired drive axles on 70,000-pound machines, and keeping a leaf blower in the cab to prevent combine fires.
“If you don't start at the head first and get everything set, the rest of the combine is not going to matter as much.”
— Brent Judisch
Key Takeaways
Start at the head. Set deck plates the same on every row, and run them a number or two tighter in variable soils where stalk and ear size swing.
On draper and platform heads the guard, not the sickle, is the cutting surface. Guards dull after three or four years in dirt, and green stems wrapping the guard is the warning sign.
Yield monitor sequence: mass flow vibration calibration first (about 60 seconds), then temperature calibration, then calibration loads. Judisch ran 10 and got within 50 pounds on a 20,000-pound load.
Zero the chaffer and sieve every year. If zero is not zero, your usual settings of 18 on the chaffer and 12 on the sieve are not the openings you think they are.
Wear intervals: feederhouse chains and chopper knives run about 1,000 hours; rotors and concaves generally go 1,500 hours or more. Dull chopper knives show up as trash plugging tillage next spring.
A loaded combine can hit 70,000 pounds (40,000 machine, 20,000 grain, 10,000 head) on drive tires rated for 10,000 to 12,000 pounds each. Judisch's crop read: worst bean crop since 2012.
Full Transcript
Narrator: We are grateful that you are joining us for another episode of the Ag View Pitch, as we know that your time is very valuable. Our team at Ag View Solutions is always here for you for any questions or comments that you may have. Please feel free to reach out to us at cbarron@agviewsolutions.com. And now here is your host, Chris Barron.
Chris
Barron: Welcome everybody to another episode of the Ag View Pitch.
Brent
Judisch: Before we get going, I do want to do a couple of housekeeping notes.
Chris
Barron: Um, just a reminder that 15 Minutes is our exclusive subscriber-only podcast that if you haven't signed up yet, you definitely need to do that. It comes out the 9th, the 19th, and the 29th of every month. Lots of good episodes in there. So if you look at the show notes here in the information here for this podcast, you'll be able to sign up there and all kinds of interesting things to listen to, especially as you get ready to go in harvest. Also, the Ag View Executive Business Conference registration is open. We've got quite a few people signing up already and just want to remind everybody if you haven't signed up, planning on going, recommend you get signed up as soon as you can, especially before you get busy with harvest.
And so with that said, we have Brent Judisch with us, John Deere expert, equipment expert, and also farmer who has actually already started doing some harvest here as we record this on September 6th. So how's it going, Brent?
Brent
Judisch: Ah, it's going good. The heat broke and we're 65 degrees this morning, so it feels like fall.
Chris
Barron: Yeah, yeah. So I hear— I heard a turning signal going in the background. You must be almost to the John Deere store, or else you're hauling corn in. You harvested a little corn, didn't you?
Brent
Judisch: Yeah, I dumped my corn this morning and now I'm heading into work.
Chris
Barron: So gotcha, gotcha. So what were you finding in the field?
Brent
Judisch: We're doing corn. It's on our lightest farm that we have. It was planted April 12th. It's 105-day corn. I've gotten 4 loads out now, and I would say it's going to be an average crop. The field that I'm on is extremely variable, so the yield monitor is awful colorful right now, but I got my yield monitor calibrated, and it's going to be an average corn crop. I was a little surprised the moisture is already down to 16 to 17, but I was mildly surprised the test weights were running about 57. I didn't expect expect that for the year we had.
Chris
Barron: Mm-hmm, yeah, and you're in what we would call one of the dry zones. I've been kind of all over the place doing on-farm meetings, and, you know, I don't think a lot of people want to hear that the crop actually looks pretty good in a lot of places, although you're in a pocket kind of like I am where, you know, there's a lot of dead spots now where there's not any green leaves left at all, and you're kind of in that zone too. But if you're saying an average crop, even with the stress we've had,— can be hard for USDA to trim much off the yield, probably.
Brent
Judisch: Well, if you look at the drought monitor in eastern Iowa, there's two kind of red bullseyes that we talked about on crop tour, and I think you're in the eastern one and I'm in the western one, Chris. As of this morning, we are 11.3 inches below normal precipitation for the year.
Chris
Barron: Yeah, that's about exactly where we're at. I know we had our plot tour last week and or week 4 last, and we had Troy Detmeyer on, and we're about the same. We're about 12 inches behind normal. Like last year at that same time, we'd had 20 inches, and you know, we were at 8. And so it's way, way, way off.
Brent
Judisch: And how did the beans look? The beans are the crop I'm most concerned about. A, the pod counts from a normal year are just not there, Chris. B, there's a lot more 1 and 2 bean pods than normal. Normally we have 2 and 3 bean pods. This year there's a lot of 1 and 2 bean pods. Then the third thing is, is we've had less than 1 inch of rain in the month of August. So August is generally your bean production month, and we just haven't had enough rain. So I look for this to be the worst bean crop we've had since 2012. Hmm, wow.
Chris
Barron: So you, you were on the Pro Farmer Crop Tour. You, you were on that. You've had a couple of weeks now for the dust to settle and to think about what you saw. What did you think then, and do you think anything different now from what you saw and what you heard with the tour?
Brent
Judisch: Well, I would say, first of all, yeah, the corn crop's not going to be a big corn crop. But it's not going to be far off. I think last year USDA's final was 173. I think we came in with Pro Farmer at 172. So it's going to be, you know, similar crop to last year. You know, not what they've been talking about with trendline yields, but I think what happened with the corn is I think we built a little better corn crop through the growing season than we anticipated. Yeah, we didn't have a lot of rain June, July, but we did have timely rains. And I think that built a little bit better base for the corn crop. It's not going to finish well, but it kind of built a pretty good factory there. Beans is just the opposite. They kind of struggled all year. You know, cool spring, they didn't grow very much in May, didn't grow very much in June.
They actually took off in July and looked pretty good. But I guess, you know, even the— but the whole Corn Belt, outside of a few small pockets, just hasn't had enough rain in August to fill that bean crop. That's the month that you really need your rainfall.
Chris
Barron: Yeah, it can be interesting. It's hard to tell with beans until combines roll for sure. So I didn't mean to do a complete crop report, but I knew you had some good insight having been on the tour and also you were actually harvesting some already. And so appreciate that. But what I did want to get a hold of you on was the, you know, you're kind of our in-house equipment expert.
Brent
Judisch: Expert.
Chris
Barron: We need to get you to the Ag View Executive Business Conference.
Brent
Judisch: It's not, it's not going to be this year, but maybe next year.
Chris
Barron: We need to get you there and have you give us some insight. You really have some good insight on trades and just values and all that kind of stuff. But really what I want to get to today with you, Brent, is the idea of, you know, we're going to be hitting the field.
Brent
Judisch: A lot of guys maybe already are testing the, testing the waters.
Chris
Barron: You said you were setting your yield monitor and stuff. Let's go through the combine settings. What are some of the key things that guys need to just kind of remember as they dust things off and get things ready to roll again?
Brent
Judisch: Well, with any harvest, I think guys kind of overlook their heads, whether it be your platform draper or corn head. You got to start at the front. If you don't do a good job at the— especially the corn, once you get your deck plates all your rows set the same, get your rolls and stuff, make sure they're in good shape. If you don't start at the head first and get everything set, the rest of the combine is not going to matter as much. And I think a lot of guys have put more money in, a lot of guys have done keeping their rolls updated. There's a lot of aftermarket stuff out there. I think guys have gotten better about that. This year I would say though, with the variability and what I've harvested already, we have run our deck plates a little tighter than normal.
That's kind of been, you know, a little bit more variability with the stock size and the ear size, you may have to run a number or two smaller than you have in the past if you're in the variable soils. Um, beyond that, um, just normal out-of-season combine maintenance. Make sure your concave's level. That's probably the most important thing of anything. Make sure your concave's level so that when you are threshing, whatever color combine you have, the more uniform threshing you have, the better job quality you're going to do. As that crop flows through the combine and then out the back.
Chris
Barron: As far as, you know, you were talking about heads, what about like drapers? What about soybean heads? Is there anything there? That's obviously a really big one that you can leave a lot of dollars out there.
Brent
Judisch: Well, I think everybody gets kind of caught up and now I'm going to put new sickles on my head and that's great, but your guards are probably more important than your sickle. If you look at your guard, your guard is supposed to have a sharp edge and that's where it actually does the cutting. You know, the guard stationary and the sickle slides across the guard. And, you know, after about 3 or 4 years, especially running in dirt all the time, them guards get pretty dull. And when you're seeing, you know, green beans or maybe a little weed or two wrapping around that guard, that's— I think guys overlook that. Them guards just don't last forever, and that is your cutting surface. On the old heads, you know, we had wear plates and stuff, but the new heads, your guard is actually your cutting surface. I think guys overlook those.
Chris
Barron: Yeah, one other thing, couple things, but the next one is the yield monitors. That can be frustrating for a lot of people, you know, it seems like you can calibrate it, get it set, and then temperature changes or the moisture of the crop or the hybrid if you're in corn, you know, you get different test weights and sometimes there's a lot of different variables that can kind of mess with your calibrations. Any thing you want to hit on with just monitor calibration?
Brent
Judisch: Well, yeah, so every year when you start out the season, you should do a mass flow vibration calibration. Um, that's the first thing I did. Um, you turn your head on, turn your combine on, let it run wide open, get into the screen for, for the vibration calibration. Takes about 60 seconds. That kind of tells the combine, you know, what Kind of what my, you know, because the combine always has a little bit of shake to it when you have the head on. Kind of tells that mass flow sensor what to expect for the year. So you always do that first. When you start the season, you want to do that. That's the first thing you want to do. The second thing I did, night before last, was I did the temperature one. There's also a temperature calibration. You can go in there, go to the same screen, just drop down until the temperature comes up and make sure the temperature's close.
If it's not, you can adjust that because it has to know the temperature of the crop to give it an accurate moisture. And then of course the third thing is— and, and, uh, I did 10 calibration loads last night. I've got it down within 50 pounds on 20,000-pound load. Um, but if it takes about really 10 to get it close, you can get pretty good after 5 or 6. But if you can zero it in and get 10 calibration loads— I realize it takes some time, but, um, I think this year with the, with the price variability and all that, there could be some insurance claims based upon gross dollars. So you're going to want to make sure that you've got that yield monitor as accurate as you can possibly get it.
Chris
Barron: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Um, we talked a little about the, about the middle of the combine as far as, you know, you talked about the threshing and getting everything returned back through and trying to get everything in the hopper. Any other comments on the main part of the machine?
Brent
Judisch: Uh, yeah, I think all the newer combines there is a chaffer and sieve calibration Same as the process you go through, it goes from 0 to 30, whatever your combine is. Same thing, we kind of know our settings we run every year, but if 0's not 0 or 5's not 5, it doesn't matter. So, it's really important to go in and do a zero calibration on your chaffer, do a zero calibration on your sieve, so that when you are making adjustments, you kind of have a starting point so that you know if I normally run on my combine, I'm running 18 on the chaffer, 12 on the sieve. But if you don't know where your zero is, those numbers aren't going to be very accurate from one year to the next.
Chris
Barron: That's pretty key then, because just because the number in the machine says something doesn't mean that's what it is there actually, right?
Brent
Judisch: Correct. Yeah, what you have, you have electric motor on an actuator, kind of like a power window on a vehicle, and if you don't have that set to where zero, zero— yeah, I can open it 6 or 8 numbers, but if I'm not starting at the right point, I'm not going to have my Jasper and sieve openings where I think I have them. Mm-hmm.
Chris
Barron: The last piece, I guess, or one of the last ones, unless I'm not asking you something, is the spreading the material out the back of the machine. You know, it seems like that can be an issue that you discover when it's time to do tillage, you know, especially like in soybeans or crops that, you know, you really need to spread that material out really well. Any, any comments or anything there that pointers or things that people could do a little better with regard to residue management?
Brent
Judisch: Well, two things we see at the dealership is farmers are running larger heads. We're 40, 45, even 50-foot drapers now. We have machines and capacity to run at 4 to 5 miles an hour. Chopper knives, I think that's one thing guys overlook. Same thing, 3 to 4 years and then chopper knives are starting to get pretty dull. If you don't have your chopper knives in really good shape, you know, there's a lot of material flowing through that chopper every second. And if you don't have them knives in good shape, don't have the hammers to whisk and throw it well, you don't have the sharpness of the knives, it's not going to chop that up. And you're not going to notice that in the fall. It's next spring when you come out there and you got your chook elevator in the field, now all of a sudden I'm rolling a bunch of my trash. That's a fall issue. That's not a spring issue.
And I think guys need to pay a little more attention, you know, PowerCast tailboard, you know, we can spread up to 40, 45 feet in the back of the combine. Now guys just need to go back there and make sure that they're spreading that whole path with that bean stubble because there's a lot of trash going through them combines in today's soybeans.
Chris
Barron: You, you talked about the, the chopper knives. Like, let's say that— I'll just give you an example— say the person's got a Class A combine and you're you're putting 300 hours a year on that separator. So let's say you're, you know, so how many hours are those knives good for?
Brent
Judisch: And I'll ask you some questions on a couple other pieces too if a person's putting that kind of volume through. Well, generally speaking, on a lot of the wear points on a combine, 1,000 hours is kind of a really key point. Feederhouse chain, we had to put one in ours this year, about 1,000 hours. That's pretty common. Did chopper knives this year, about 1,000 hours. Just a lot of the, I'm going to call the secondary components, 1,000 hours pretty key. Now your internal parts, your rotor, your concave, that stuff unless you're running rock through are generally going to run, oh, 1,500 hours or more. But the front and the back parts of the combine, because they are so key, we look at those a little more often than some of the internal parts.
Chris
Barron: Sounds good. A lot of guys are carrying a lot of weight, you know, you look at the size of these hoppers and you think of the, what the load that the hydrostat takes and that kind of thing. Is there anything operationally running the combine, things that people do that they shouldn't be doing or anything like that as far as just out operating the machine?
Brent
Judisch: Well, I think two things come to mind. One is, at least on the Deere side, and then we call it ProDrive transmission, That's just— that's your propulsion system. Don't be setting your speed higher than you need it to. You got two buttons, one's for— two's for transport, one's for in the field. If I'm only gonna run 4 to 5 mile an hour, no reason to have that speed set at 8 or 9 or 10 mile an hour. Keep that programming speed down at 6 or 7. That way I'm using more full range of my hydrostat lever, so I'm using a higher torque spec. So that's going to help pull a combine through the field, especially if I have a hilly field or something. Just take that ProDrive and turn that speed down. There's no reason to have it set at high speed if I'm only going to combine all day long at 4.5, 5 mph.
And I would say number 2 is, is I still think I see a lot of combines that are undertired on the drive tires. Some guys are running Traxxas LSW tires now. You can run the fatter duals. I just see a lot of combines yet with 20.8/42 tires on a combine that weighs 40,000 pounds. When the hopper's full, that's another 20,000 pounds. I throw a 10,000-pound head on the front, I've got a 70,000-pound combine, and my drive tires are only supposed to handle about 10,000 or 12,000 pounds apiece. So, I think guys are getting better at it, but going to these larger surface area, low sidewall tires is something that's just, I think, overlooked by a lot of guys. They just don't want to spend the extra money, but compaction's compaction. And I got 70,000 pounds plowing through the field.
That's a lot of weight on a one drive axle because they're not much on the rear, on, you know, the rear of a combine. There's not much weight back there when you have the hopper full and the heads in the front. What about tracts?
Chris
Barron: We have a lot of clients that we work with. I mean, I don't know, maybe, maybe 30% of the people we work with have tracts.
Brent
Judisch: Is that That much better? I think I did. I looked here a while back because I'm working with a friend of mine that actually is in the track business, and I think it's about 18 to 20% of what, of what the combines sold, uh, on the used market anyway, have tracks on them. Um, tracks has improved a lot. It used to be tracks were slow on the road, 16 to 18 mile an hour, but the manufacturers have all gotten together and tried to make these tracks go 21, 22, 23 miles an hour. So I think we've seen a large large increase in track sales because of that. The technology's finally catching up with the tracks. They were kind of falling behind there for a while, but that's gotten a lot better. And then now, of course, we have these new Class 10, Class 11 combines of all brands. So now all of a sudden we have a combine that weighs 25 tons instead of 20 tons.
Um, I think tracks is probably, uh, gonna be a larger factor in the future As, you know, combines are getting heavier, you know, it's just going to be a trend I think you're going to see continue. Grain carts have kind of been that way for years, Chris, but they're not a propulsion system, you know, they're just, they just are just, you know, riding, they're not driving. So, I think that technology is really starting to catch up with the speed of the combines and that's probably what a guy should be looking at for the future. Mm-hmm.
Chris
Barron: What else haven't I asked about as far as combines go and, you know, you mentioned grain carts, I guess, Any, any other things I didn't ask that are things guys need to pay attention to as they ramp up for harvest or as they get things rolling?
Brent
Judisch: Well, one thing we have is, and I've already seen on YouTube quite a few combine fires this year, um, get yourself a little electric leaf blower or a system to keep these combines blowed off. I think a lot of guys just get in a hurry, you know, We take our combines home at night, but generally they sit out in the field, they get dewy, all the dirt sticks to them. Get in the habit of keeping a little electric power blower in your cab or in your service truck and blow these combines off every couple days. Keep the trash away from the chopper bearings and keep the trash away from the shaker arms and the side of the combines, because I think most fires, not all, but most fires can be prevented with a little, just 3, 4, 5 minutes a day is all it would take to keep that machine, you know, free of debris.
Chris
Barron: Mm-hmm. That's a really good point. Any other safety comments as we wrap up? That's something too, I mean, making sure you got your head locked up, but people get in a hurry. Any other thing there?
Brent
Judisch: Oh, well, you know, the last 18, 20 years, the manufacturers have gotten really good about you got to be on the seat or the head doesn't run or the machine shuts off. So as far as that, a lot of that's kind of bill into the manufacturers. Now, the only caveat to that is, is, um, you know, there are— you could have something to see somebody looking at the head or something. But, you know, these machines are so heavy and so powerful that, you know, getting a finger or arm or something stuck in the head, the machine is not going to care because of the torque they have. So that's not going to, you know, just, just— and it just is about— you just use your head, be smart, you know. You know, I look back to the old days where they had a modern picker on the tractor and you reached in with your arm and you pull the ear back.
And, you know, that's like a lot of our grandpas didn't have a finger or two, but today's stuff is a whole lot different. But you need to make a point there for working on these heads. You know, all feederhouses lock up. Only takes a second to put that lever down and lock that cylinder so the head can't come down on you. And sometimes 5 or 6 or 8 seconds is a lifesaver. Yeah, exactly.
Chris
Barron: All right. Hey, Brent, this has been a great conversation as usual. You're full of knowledge.
Brent
Judisch: And like I said, we need to get you get you to the—
Chris
Barron: and we'd probably be talking more about machine and equipment replacements and fleet management and all that kind of stuff at some point. But as far as harvest goes, I'm going to wish you a safe harvest and really appreciate your time today.
Brent
Judisch: Yeah, all the listeners, don't be Gotta Go Joe. Just take your time and have a safe harvest versus a fast harvest. That's right, exactly.
Chris
Barron: So Well, and with that said, that's good advice and we appreciate everybody listening. And if you got anything else you'd like us to be hitting on as you guys are rolling through harvest and got some things you'd like, just send Shea or I a note, give us some feedback. And please give us some feedback on the Apple iTunes too. We appreciate that feedback. We can start getting some more of that. That'll help us out. With that said, we will catch everybody next time on the Ag View Coach.