MacDon introduces a 45-foot FD70 FlexDraper “whose harvesting capacity is greater than most Class 9 combines,” the company says. “The FlexDraper’s productivity boost comes from the fact that it is a flex draper, rather than a flex auger. Because it is a draper, crop feeding into the combine’s feeder house is much smoother with much less bunching and plugging. This allows the combine’s threshing mechanism to operate much more efficiently, a difference that will allow most operators to increase their ground speed significantly compared to an equivalent sized flex auger head.”
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FlexDrapers are especially designed for lower-podding crops, such as soybeans or edible beans, but work in well in cereals and other crops. FD70 can perform as a rigid header by locking together the three sections.
MacDon’s header height control system — called Float Optimizer — automatically adjust flotation to ground conditions, eliminating the need for the operator to make constant adjustments. FlexDrapers also have reels that gently lift the crop like a comb before cutting, and a C-shaped cutterbar that can cut at ground level.
FlexDraper is available for most current model combines. It also comes in 30-, 35-and 40-foot widths.
Neil Neufeld is in the sales department with Young’s Equipment, a Case IH dealer in Regina and four other Saskatchewan locations. They also sell MacDon equipment, and Neufeld says the FD70 headers work “amazingly,” especially in lentils and other low-podding pulse crops. But while they sell a lot of 40-foot headers, no customer at the five Young’s locations has shown any interest in the 45-foot model, Neufeld says.
If any region of the Prairies has the flat landscape and large fields to accommodate a 45-foot header, it’s the Regina area. “The holdup is unloading auger length,” Neufeld says. Young’s has sold lots of combines with the capacity to handle throughput from a 45-foot header, but he says augers are already stretched to reach past the 40 footers.
For more information about MacDon headers,
visit the website at www.macdon.comor call
204-885-5590.
