April 2019

From the Claresholm Local Press

August 2018

From: The Western Producer

January 2016

From Country Guide

August 2015

From "The Spark" by Beyond Agronomy August 23, 2015 - Volume 12, Issue 32

Stripping peas

High efficiency, low cost.

Harvesting lodged field peas can be a slow, painful and costly process. When you mix slow harvesting speeds with the privilege of buying expensive flex headers and cross auger kits, it's no wonder that many people shy away from peas. For this reason, I've always been intrigued with farms that use stripper headers. Imagine harvesting a 60 bu/ac (4T) lodged pea crop at 9km/hr with a header that is two-thirds the cost of flex draper! I stopped by Lamb Farms near Claresholm, AB who have been using stripper headers for over 10 years and were in the field last week stripping peas.

Ron Lamb who pioneered the use of stripper headers in Alberta uses a Shelbourne CVS 32-foot attached to a JD 9660 combine. Ron was quick to point out that they don't require a combine with high horsepower because they are putting two-thirds less material through the combine. My really quick math says a stripper front just knocked off $100,000+ from the price of combine with no downsize in separating area.

See a Shelbourne 32-foot stripper header in action on peas click here.

To run a stripper front properly Josh gave me a few tips and tricks to help with smooth operation.

Top tips for stripper headers

Strippers like to be kept full need to be pushing against a wall of material to keep losses to a minimum.
Rotor rpm will vary through the day. You want to keep it as low as possible to leave as much residue attached to the ground as possible. As the crop canopy dries down rotor speeds need to slow or ground speed needs to increase. (Never exceed 750 rotor RPM.)
Rolling for rocks is still recommended. The rotating fingers can bring in rocks if you run to low to the ground.
Harvest the same direction you intend to seed next fall to reduce chance pulling out stubble.
While it MAY be possible to seed through pea residue with a hoe type drill, a disc type opener is strongly recommended.
Set skid shoes, and header feeder house fore aft angles correctly to keep rotor from making contact with the ground.
Although stripper heads run less material through the harvester, and leave more residue attached, make sure residue is adequately chopped and spread evenly across the width of the head. Next years crop emergence depends on it!
Stripper heads create a better environment for next year's crop but also for stubble fires, so be extra prepared to deal with harvest time fires.

Now before anyone jumps out and buys a stripper header, they really are a better fit for disk drills. As you can imagine, pulling out pea stubble with a hoe drill and plugging solid every 50 ft is not on anyone's to do list. However, if you already make a habit of managing stubble with shallow vertical tillage (swear word), you may be able to fit a stripper header into the system and gain the benefits of increased harvest efficiency and lower operating costs. That said the stripper header and disk drill system is a perfect marriage.

In previous years Shelbourne stripper heads only came in widths up to 32 ft but with demand are now stretching out to 36 and 42 ft. To make a guy like me excited, they now offer center-mounted headers, which are perfect for CTF.

Steve's quick math
JD S670 with Shelbourne XCV 42ft @ 9km/hr = $260.00/hr
JD S690 with MacDon FD75 40 ft @ 4.5 km/hr = $345.00/hr

And then, lets say you had 1,000 acres of lodged peas running at 60 bu/ac (4T).
JD 670 with Shelbourne XCV 42ft = 28 ac/hr x $260/hr = $9,285
JD 690 with MacDon FD75 40 ft = 12 ac/hr x $345/hr = $28,750

In this example, it cost $19,465 less to harvest 60,000 bu of lodged peas using a JD S670 with 42 stripper header compared to a JD S690 with 40 flex draper. That's a difference of $12.00/T or $0.32/bu.

In the end, you can't beat a stripper header on a lodged pea crop when it comes to operating costs and harvest efficiency. Twice the speed with half the horses is enough to catch anyone's attention. However, the magic stops there unless you own a set of disk drills or some type of tillage equipment to manage residue. If you watched the video and saw the speed and ease of stripper headers I know it will get your gears turning like mine. SL

Big thanks to Lamb Farms for giving us a demo and showing us the finer points of stripping peas.

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