Pre-harvest: what you're forgetting

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Shay

Foulk: Welcome back everyone to the Ag View Pitch. This is Shay Foulk and I'm joined today with Brent Judisch and I'm going to go ahead and let him introduce himself a little bit and we'll talk about the topic at hand. How are you tonight, Brent?

Brent

Judisch: Good, thanks Shea. My name is Brent Judisch. I live just outside of Cedar Falls, Iowa. Grew up wanting to be a farm kid, been farming my whole life. Started selling John Deere machinery 32 years ago, and I'm still here, basically the same job, just selling and enjoying dealing with farmers every day.

Shay

Foulk: So are you primarily located then working with people in that northeast Iowa area? Are you all over?

Brent

Judisch: Yeah, I get from Waterloo, I get about, oh, 60 to 70 miles out in all directions. Okay. After that many years, you kind of get a lot of pretty good following buildup. So Yeah, I get out 75 miles, you know, on a weekly basis. Not every week, but a lot of times I get out that far.

Shay

Foulk: Great. Well, being in the industry that long, I think we're talking to the right person here for the topic at hand. And what we wanted to talk through today is just some things that you may be forgetting as you jump back into the field. A lot of people get some of the big things right, you know, making sure that the combine's ready to go or what they think is ready to go. But when you have people that are out there that you call on, the John Deere representatives or whichever dealership it is that you work with, they see a lot of the same things year in and year out that maybe we can be addressed now if you haven't had the opportunity to jump into the field. So Brent, I think I'll let you take this and kind of run with some of the topics here, and I'll bounce in when I think it's relevant.

But what are some of the things that you've seen over your experience that maybe, maybe farmers out there should be considering if they haven't had a chance to get into the field yet?

Brent

Judisch: Well, and I guess my first area of concern is, is every combine today has a GPS mapping system, AutoTrac, yield monitor. Most guys turn it on, on the way to the field. And in reality, that needs to be done 2 weeks, maybe 3 weeks ahead of time to get their, to get their planning data shoved over as far as if they have Field Locator, if they have Hybrid Locator, get that in there. And just the simple things, getting the run pages set up, you know, the run pages are not the same from planning to spraying to harvest. It's a different setup, it's a different set of data. And I've been out the last 2 or 3 weeks getting guys set up. And the first, the first step is always getting the run pages where they need to be. And that's just one thing that never gets done until people are on the way to the field the first night.

Shay

Foulk: Right. And a lot of that is, I mean, you know, from firsthand experience, it's just relearning these systems as we jump back into the new season. And like you said, they're the difference between the planter and the sprayer and the combine. You know, there's no excuse for waiting until a little too late other than we get busy and things like that. But taking that time to refresh beforehand can, can set you up for success there as we get started.

Brent

Judisch: Well, yeah, it's a little different for me. I work with it every day, but for the guys that don't, they're really good at it. From the middle of harvest to the end of harvest. Right. Then when the next harvest comes around, it's a computer and the average person's like, man, I can't remember where to start with this. So that's kind of the first step is just get your, get your computers and get your software. A lot of guys now are using the Yield360 stuff. They're using the iPads in there, get them synced up, get them talking to each other. There's nothing more frustrating than to get to the field and all of a sudden I can't move because I have no communication or I'm not storing my data or just simple things like that can be done. You know, we're waiting. It's been raining every day. We're sitting in the shed of the shop. We're not thinking about this stuff.

So it's a great time to get that kind of work in the yard versus in the field the first time.

Shay

Foulk: Exactly. Anything else on technology that we should maybe be taking a look at?

Brent

Judisch: Most guys are very good at it. Whether you've got John Deere or Yield or your DeKalb dealer, a lot of people have help now.. It's just a matter of communicating with the people that are helping you set your systems up just so that, like I said, when you get to the field, you've already ready to go before you get there. That's the biggest thing.

Shay

Foulk: Great point. So moving on, what do you have next for us?

Brent

Judisch: The head. I mean, everybody's concentrating on the combine. They get their combine in for inspections or they trade combines every year. I like to start at the front of the machine, whether you have a bean head, go make sure your sickle's good, make sure your guards are sharp. Make sure your head's level. Calibrating the head to the combine. I don't care what color combine you have, they have to be calibrated. They should be calibrated every year, actually. Corn head, you want to calibrate the header control, especially this year's lighter down corn, especially along Highway 20. Make sure that your head's calibrated properly and level. Make sure your gathering chains are adjusted right. That's going to be critical this year. Everybody kind of forgets about the head. You know, it's, well, I put it away last year, it worked great.

The combine should have been to the shop, but a lot of guys don't think about that head. And same thing as the GPS till they get to the field. And it only takes a couple hours to get a head ready, but it's just probably one of the things I see. I had a phone call today from a guy ready to go to the field and he hadn't even greased his corn head yet. I mean, that should have been done 3 weeks ago, you know? Right. I think some guys forget about that, you know? Yeah, the combine's ready to go, the concave's good, the raft bars are good. Good and all that. But start at the head, start at the front of the combine, work your way back. Tire pressure is another thing. A lot of, a lot of these platforms are 40, 45 feet now. It only takes 1 or 2 pounds of air pressure in the, in the combine tires to really make a difference when you're 20 feet from the center of the combine.

Now make sure all the, all them front dual tires are between 20 and 30 pounds depending on the combine and the size of the tire. Make sure the rear tires are pressured up right. It's just simple things that don't take a long time, but when you get to the field, they can sure make a big difference in how that machine operates.

Shay

Foulk: Well, and you mentioned it with that tire pressure, with how wet we are here this fall, there's a lot of play that you can have in those tires on that, you know, will make the difference between, hey, are we sinking into this mud, are we going to make it through, uh, for those that have had an issue staying wet year-round, really.

Brent

Judisch: So no, we're going to shape up like last year. Last year we fought harvest all fall. We had guys switching tires in the middle of season, adding four-wheel drives, adding tracks. I hope we don't see that this year. I'm not as well as we were last year yet, but sometimes the simple things can go a long way as far as getting through them tough spots or being able to keep going when it's a little bit amp in the areas of the field where maybe the tile's a little lacking or we've got a low spot where the water's ponded.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah, I would say taking the time to check your tire pressure is a little bit less than what you're going to spend pulling a combine out of the, out of the mud. So great point there. Moving backwards, uh, we getting into the feeder house next?

Brent

Judisch: Uh, yeah, the feeder house, pretty simple. Um, same as the head, most combines now have lateral tilt feeder house because they tilt side to side. Most combines now, the newer ones, the feederhouse front plate tilts. Before you put the head on, calibrate both of those. You have to have the head off to calibrate it both directions. Get them calibrated. I get some questions about where should I be running my feederhouse tilt, which is the front faceplate angle, in different conditions. I can tell you where to put it, but unless that thing's been calibrated, unless zero really means zero, it's really hard to get an accurate reading on that unless it's calibrated. It's a simple process, 3 or 4 button pushes on the computer screen in the combine and it does it. But boy, very few guys go through that simple step of getting those two calibrated.

It doesn't take very long, but it can be critical, especially this year. I said with all the guys with down corn, getting that faceplate angle right can really be help getting that corn picked up and sliding through that, that tough conditions we're going to see in some fields this year.

Shay

Foulk: Well, and making those decisions now will save you a lot of headache here later on.

Brent

Judisch: Yeah, great. After the feeder house, and then you transition into the guts of the combine where they have a rotor, conventional rasp bars, and concave, and that stuff that, you know, need to be done months ago. That's not that difficult, pretty straightforward. I think one area that sometimes gets overlooked is the transition area. Once we get the, the corn or beans shelled and we get them up into the grain tank, We have a large auger that feeds the grain tank now. It's a transition point between the yield monitor and the moisture sensor of the yield monitor. And those augers do a lot of pushing because the typical auger is going to push that corn 3 to 4 feet above it to get that grain tank full. There's a lot of wear on that top of that auger flighting and the tube. And I go look at a lot of combines and the tube is actually wore thin.

And or the flighting is real sharp and that really does hamper grain quality, especially as the— as when we're going to have a wetter crop this year. We're going to be starting at 30% corn instead of 20% corn. Um, and it doesn't— you know, you're talking a $400 or $500 auger to have it reflighted or just the tubing. Um, a lot of guys don't look at that very close, but that does— that is a very important piece of getting that grain to fill them big 400 bushel grain tanks. Just pushing that grain up with that auger and that tube up there.

Shay

Foulk: Well, and that makes a difference on delivery too. Like you mentioned there, quality of that grain, it's going to be affecting the price in some cases, what you're receiving depending on where you're hauling to.

Brent

Judisch: Well, this is going to be a bad year because we're gonna have to dry more corn. Drying more corn, you get hot, the quality is not quite as good. So anything you can do to keep that quality, the better it is going into the bin, the better it's going to be coming out of the bin, especially with— like I said, it's going to be a long wet fall.

Shay

Foulk: I'm afraid Yeah, I think everybody's feeling that now. How about coming out the back end of the combine? What are we looking for there?

Brent

Judisch: Well, as we think about next year's planning and next year's tillage, this fall's harvest is really critical. How we, how we discharge all the trash this year, we're gonna have probably pretty good corn yields, maybe a little bit less than last year, but there's gonna be a lot of trash coming out the back, both corn and beans. Having our chopper knives sharp, having our stationary knives sharp, that really affects how we cut up the trash as we put out the back of the combine. Most of your newer combines now have either a discharge fan back there or just a widespread chopper. Um, having the fins set up right, having the speed of the discharge fins can be important. On corn, you want to slow that down to probably about 200-240 RPMs, but on beans If we have a 40-foot draper, say, that's going to take about a 400, 400 RPM speed back there to get that trash spread out.

So we want to spread that trash as wide as our bean head is, get it out there as far as we can. We also want to chop it up well, because if you run it through the combine and don't do a very good job this fall, it's not going to deteriorate over the winter as much, and we're going to have a tougher time next spring with a Fook elevator or vertical till, whatever we're trying to get through there. To get our seedbed proper to set up proper for next year.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah, and I— you said it really well here offline of, uh, next year's planting starts now, and it's a little difficult to focus on when you're looking at wet conditions and you got wet corn and like you said, this long late season, but it really does have lasting impacts moving into next year.

Brent

Judisch: Well, I think you will— we'll see a little bit of yield loss this year. You know, we created some compaction last fall didn't have any choice getting the crop out. And I think that's a carryover to this year again. A few ruts here and there, and you know, those ruts just don't go away. It's going to take a tillage or really hard freeze to get them out. So we kind of want to be as careful as we can get this year's crop in, because it will directly affect what happens next spring as we start the next crop year.

Shay

Foulk: Great points there. Anything else on the combine that we need to be thinking out? About or, you know, other equipment out there that you see?

Brent

Judisch: Oh, the combine, just simple things. We always think about changing the oil. That's pretty obvious. Oil and filters, air filters. You get a lot of complaints about, oh, I'm a little underpowered this year, don't understand why. And you get out there and pull the air filter out and the air filter is just not pretty at all. And I know they're not cheap. You know, you're talking $80 to $100 an air filter, but You know, these new engines now trying to create 400 and 500 horse. It takes a clean filter to get that— to get enough air through to make that happen. I think a lot of guys skip a little bit when it comes to air filters, especially when you got two filters back there, inner and outer. Spend the money because there's nothing worse than being frustrated. It's going to be wet conditions underfoot, wet corn.

It's going to take every ounce of horsepower we have this year to get this crop harvested properly.

Shay

Foulk: Good. Yeah, it's a good point, spending the money up front to save yourself the trouble down the road. Anything else there that you're thinking, you know, outside of the combine that the listeners here should be taking into account as, as they hopefully move into the field here soon?

Brent

Judisch: Well, it's same way as the combine. I mean, I guess the key part of any harvest anymore, as important as the combine is, is the tractor and the grain cart that we're moving the grain with. You know, the old days of making a pass and up on the corner of the field are gone with wagons and stuff anymore. Everything's done now on the go. Hardly anybody doesn't have a grain cart anymore. And the combine's only as efficient as the grain cart and the semis and the dryer are. So it kind of needs to be a package system. If I'm only— if I can combine 3,500 acres or 3,500 bushels per hour, I need to think about how can I move that many bushels with the grain cart to the truck? How can I move that many bushels from the truck to the to town or to the grain bin.

And I think a lot of guys end up with more engine hours on the combine than they do separator hours, and that should be about an 80% mix. And I see a lot of guys, you know, they spend 25% of their day sitting there waiting because the grain cart's full or the truck's not back. And you kind of need to think about the whole process and make sure that everything from start to finish is actually there to make that combine as efficient as it can be.

Shay

Foulk: Great point there. Well, I think this has been a good talk, and if, uh, the listeners out there have any questions for you, obviously they can reach out to their local John Deere reps or whoever it is that they're, uh, working with on a dealership. But if they do have a question for you, is there a way that they can reach out to you here, Brent?

Brent

Judisch: Yeah, I work at P&K Midwest at the Waterloo location. Um, most everybody around this area knows me. Um, I do spend a lot of time on the phone, especially this time of year. Just simple things, helping people get their settings right the first time. I think one thing about combines we maybe didn't discuss is most of your modern combines now have a concave measuring system that's from 0 to 50, and those numbers are actually in millimeters. And I don't care what color combine you have. And the simplest way to set a combine for corn is, is to go out and measure an average corn cob. Today everybody's got metric wrenches. Take a corn cob, shell all the kernels off of it, slide that corn cob into a, into an open-end wrench. You're going to probably find anywhere from 24 millimeters to 30 millimeters is a very common size.

A typical combine, you want to set that concave about 2 millimeters less than the average corn cob size. So if my cobs are measuring 28 millimeter, I'm going to want to set that concave about 26 millimeters. Um, the easiest way to get corn off the cob is to, to tweak that cob just a little bit as you run that cob through the combine. And if we get too tight and we split the cobs, that's going to be really hard to do a proper job of combining. But you want to just tweak that cob a little bit as it rolls through the combine. And, um, just like I said, most guys got a metric wrench anywhere with them, just Take a couple with you to the field, shell off 3 or 4 cobs, or pick them up off the ground and slide them into an open-end wrench and get a pretty good average. And that's going to be a really good place to start.

You won't make a lot of changes to that if you do it that way and kind of start the process with the simple way.

Shay

Foulk: Yeah, that's a great tip there. And something of note coming from that comment is making constant, uh, changes, you know, throughout the day. Obviously conditions change, your moisture changes. The type of crop that you're getting into, you know, are you in an area of good crop or a little bit lighter? And how does that run and how does that affect the combine? And I know it's pretty easy to get away from— I shouldn't say paying attention to it, but it's easy when you're in good corn or whatever to just be focused on what's in front of you and you need to be checking the tank and taking a minute here to step outside and physically get outside of the combine, go check and see how that trash is. Turn it out behind you and how it's preparing for, like you said, for the year ahead.

Brent

Judisch: Well, and I— most of your modern corn heads now all have hydraulic adjust deck plates. It's something you do from the cab. Um, normally during the— in the morning when it's tough, you want to get them deck plates a little tighter than normal. As the day wears on, you get a nice windy day with sunshine, this— it's going to pick a little bit dirtier as the day goes on. You can slide them deck plates open a number or two Kind of control the amount of trash that goes through the combine, which really helps it be more efficient at how it threshes the grain. And then you get back at after dark, it gets night, gets a little tough again. Slide them deck plates in just a hair, control that trash again.

Just, there's a lot of things that the features of the combines have that we kind of overlook sometimes, and they really can make life easy for that combine operator if we just do a few adjustments as the day goes on.

Shay

Foulk: So outside of talking to you or looking in the manual and really sitting down and taking that time, which a lot of farmers and a lot of operators don't have a whole lot of, are there any other good resources? I know there's a lot of great YouTube channels out there that show a lot of the adjustments and, you know, maintenance on these pieces of equipment. Anything that you recommend?

Brent

Judisch: Yeah, there's this funny thing that all combine manufacturers put in every combine, call it an owner's manual. Yep. And, uh, I go out in a lot of combines, and, and if I had $100 for every time I asked where the manual was and I got this puzzled look on the face, I'd be a rich man.

Shay

Foulk: Or, or you open it up and it's still got that nice cellophane wrapping on it, right?

Brent

Judisch: Uh, yeah. And believe it or not, the manufacturers— I don't care what Brandy, want to talk about, they're all really, really good at getting some initial settings in their book. Most of them have a little cheat sheet guide under the armrest. A lot of times the settings are very accurate to start with. And of course, we forget, like I said, it's been 10 months since we harvested again, and I forget where my sweet spots were last year. And most of the combines have a, have a cheat sheet or an auto setting mode on the Command Arm. And just getting that, getting the starting point close is really important. It's easy to tweak it if we're close. It's really hard to tweak it if we're way off.

Shay

Foulk: Takes a lot more time, right? And hopefully the listeners in your area there won't have a lot of time, but judging by the storm that went through there this evening in northeast Iowa and the rain that's been going through, might be a few days for them to get their nose in the owner's manual.

Brent

Judisch: Well, they're talking rain tonight, rain tomorrow, and then again Saturday. So I would guess we're looking at first of next week before we're really fit. All right.

Shay

Foulk: Well, hey, Brent, thanks a lot for, you know, joining us here tonight. Appreciate the conversation that we had. For those listening out there, if you have any questions, reach out to your local dealer, get into that owner's manual, make sure that you're taking the time to do that.. And if you have anything that Ag View Solutions can provide for you or any contacts, we're more than happy to help. So thanks a lot, Brent. Really appreciate it.

Brent

Judisch: Yeah, thanks for connecting me. Have a good night.

Shay

Foulk: Thanks everyone for listening. We will catch you next time on the Ag View Pitch.

Narrator: Thanks again for listening, everyone. If you would like to hear more content from Ag View Solutions, Listen to our other podcasts such as Dad's Wisdom or our current Harvest Series. Ag View Solutions works as an integral part of operations like yours, side by side for farm profit management, business collaboration and structuring, facilitating industry-leading peer groups, and coaching and consulting tailored to your farm's unique needs. We know that no two farms are the same, and we are here to help make your farm be the best it can be.

Shay

Foulk: You can learn more at agviewsolutions.com.

Narrator: Email us at agviewpitch@gmail.com or call Chris Barron at 319-533-5703.

Shay

Foulk: We really look forward to talking with you.