Australia
September 17, 2015
“I want to be able to put a bucket of golf balls in the front of the harvester and have them all end up on the sieve” - Ray Harrington
No, Ray hasn’t won the contract for picking up golf balls at the local driving range (although we have no doubt he could do that too if he put his mind to it!). What he’s talking about is setting up his harvester to maximise the effect of harvest weed seed control (HWSC).
One of the main limitations of HWSC is the ability to direct weed seeds into the chaff cart, or destructor, or any of the other HWSC tools. Once the weed seeds enter the front of the harvester it is imperative to get them out of the rotor and onto the sieves so they can be captured or destroyed.
“Don’t be afraid to open up the concave and the grates in the harvester to get the weed seeds out of the rotor,” says Ray.
Ray believes that if the harvester is set right, only 2% of the weed seeds will exit with the straw in the rotor. Research by Dr Michael Walsh from AHRI has confirmed that Ray is in the ball park.
For this edition of AHRI insight we filmed Ray inside his harvester talking about harvester set up. He says it better than we could write it.
If you are setting your harvester up for any of the HWSC tools, this is a must see!
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P.S. We’re giving RIM a break. New RIM runs are back in November! (Here are the ones we’ve done so far).
P.P.S. In exciting news, Stephen Powles has a new online course brought to you by WeedSmart's Diversity Era. Starts November 16! For more details and to get your free account (it's easy), click here.
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