Harvest is rolling along in IL and WI and the excellent weather should keep it going for the foreseeable future. Here are some nice pictures from this past week taken by our Product Support Specialists.
Central IL sunrise
Central IL sunrise
White corn from White County , IL
Corn Eclipse
Rock Falls, IL
New 8370R Tractor
Picking 25% corn in Northern, IL on Sept 22
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by Derek Sloan, Assumption, IL
Harvest is just beginning in Central Illinois for some farmers and is very close for all others in the area. A tool I find very useful during the season, is one most people have on them at all times now, their smartphones. An app called GoHarvest can be downloaded on your device and can be put to good use while in the field with your John Deere Machine. The app is specifically designed to help with the new S-Series 650 through 690 machine models. It will help you set your machine correctly on the outside as well as on the inside with a very user friendly interface. The app can also be used to get the best performance out of your machine while in the field through the performance tab. You simply tell the app where your losses or problem is with the harvested grain and it will supply you with an adjustment to try and improve the existing problem. It will even ask you if this adjustment corrected the problem and give you a checklist for common issues associated with the complaint. You can also make notes right on the app if there is something you want to remember from year to year.
There are also some other Go apps that could be useful on your farm. These are called GoTill and GoSpray. These apps allow you to be very specific about the equipment you are using on your operation and even setup the depth you want to run on rippers and disks in GoTill. There is a lot of useful information about pre season setup with the tractor, implement maintenance, and leveling in GoTill.
GoSpray also covers maintenance as well as general setup of vehicle, boom setup, calibrations, and boomtrac setup. These are all very good tools to use and if you get a chance I recommend downloading them. We will try and keep you informed of any new apps and technology that will benefit your operation as it is released. The Sloan Implement app contains all of these applications in the apps we recommend tab under the more section. You can download the Sloan App by clicking here.
Do you want to get the best performance out of your STS or S-Series combine in corn this year and reduce shelling before it reaches the rotor? The first thing to check is that your feeder house drum is up and the feeder house chain is on the slow speed. This will reduce shelling in the feeder house. Next is to make sure that the feed accelerator is on the slow side. One thing that helps a lot is changing out the feed accelerator paddles to a smooth paddle. Combines come from the factory with serrated paddles. Changing them out can take some time, but it is well worth it in the long run. If you still have issues at the feed accelerator, take the smooth paddles to a machine shop and put a 30 degree bend in them, bend them back, that makes them less aggressive. You just want to “shovel” the corn into the rotor.
Next, make sure the concaves are level. Leveling the concaves reduces loading to one side. To do this, you want to read your operators manual and make sure to follow it step by step. When setting the concave clearance, take a ear and shell the corn off the cob, then take the cob and push it through the box end on a metric wrench. If the cob doesn’t slide through a 19mm wrench, but does slide through a 20mm wrench, set the concave to 20-22mm. This will get the cob clean of corn and reduce cob damage and then keep the cob out of the grain tank. Next you want to make sure you have a spacer in the rear grates. This allows the corn, cobs, and stalks to be thrown around more to get all the loose corn out of the rotor.
Next are the chaffer and sieve. In your combine armrest display you want to go to the calibrations page and do a calibration of the chaffer and sieve. This will make sure that if you set the chaffer at 20mm it is 20mm and not 25mm. These are just a few tips and tricks for this season. If you have any questions please call the Sloan Support Call Center at 217-693-6209 and talk to one of the Sloan product support specialists.
by Jared Wheeler, Assumption, IL
We have updated our S Series combine instructional videos on Youtube to provide information on the final tier 4 model combine that was introduced in 2014. If you click on an old video from 2012, you will now be redirected to the updated videos. Along with Youtube, the videos can be found on our website or on the Sloan Implement App. You can download the app for Iphone or Droid on our website by clicking here. Click here for the s-series playlist on Youtube. We also have a PDF quick reference guides available in both places as well.
by Lucas Veale, Assumption, IL
Fall harvest is under way in Central Illinois. Some aggressive elevators are pushing some farmers to get an early start even with high moisture. Yields have been very good.
The FT4 (Final Tier 4) combines don’t seem to be using a lot of DEF up to this point. The .2-.3 gph usage does not seem to be too far from reality.
Also new for 2014 FT4 combines is the new Integrated Combine Adjust (ICA). This system provides suggestions on what adjustments to make based on some questions you answer. If this button is flashing orange or red at you then simply press the flashing button and go through the ICA pages until you get to the point where it suggests an adjustment for improvement. At that point hit the cancel button and it should quit flashing at you until at least the next time you engage the separator.
Under the “Mapping” button on your 2630 there has been a labeling change. When you go to select yield as your foreground for the mapping page, it now says yield (wet). The mapping page with all of the different colors representing yield has always been in wet bushels but now the button indicates that to be the case.
