by Lucas Veale, Assumption, IL 

Corn and soybean harvest resumed late last week as a window of weather has entered Central Illinois.  The corn has dried way down since before all of the rain and the beans are much more ready to cut as well.

John Deere just announced the release of shared coverage maps for swath control.  This will allow two planters in the same field to use the headlands created by the other planter.  This has been a highly sought after enhancement and will be available in Feb 2015.  More details to follow.

When cutting beans, the steeper the angle of cut (other than perpendicular) will result in less beans “run over” by the snout on the end of the header.  It also will improve feeding into the header.

On draper heads, make sure that you never take crop down only on one side other than for a very short distance.  Doing so will cause the crop to be pushed across the center belt and pulled under the opposite side belt and can result in plugging of the side belt.

Make sure that you re-calibrate your headers as header control performance will need to be at its optimum in the current soft conditions.  Also insure that the pitch on your feederhouse is correct for the header on the combine.  One quick way to check this is to press the 2 or 3 button on the hydro handle with the header switch turned on and allow the header to lower to the ground.  Shut off the machine and go out to the ends of the header and check the outer yellow skid shoe for level.  If it is pitched too far forward it can cause the cutterbar to push material in front of the header.  If it is too far back then it will cause the material to build up under the header and and drag material.