“He said, ‘Hey, I gotta show you something at my farm,’” Beres, a research scientist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in Lethbridge, recalls. “So he grabbed me, jumped in his truck and we drove over.”

Halford is no ordinary farmer. He’s a zero-till pioneer and inventor. He made headlines in 2007, when he sold the technology for the ConservaPak air seeder to John Deere. He was inducted into the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame in 2021.

Halford showed Beres a retrofitted swather with a spray boom and tank, and a cart towed behind for water and herbicide solution.

“He’d done the homework,” Beres says. “It worked.”

What Halford had done — spraying pre-seed herbicide at the same time as swathing his canola — wasn’t just a clever labour-saver. It was a potential solution to one of the biggest obstacles preventing more Prairie farmers from growing winter wheat: timing.

From Down Under to the drawing board

Halford first got the idea after visiting Australia. It turns out Prairie farmers aren’t the only ones looking for ways to save time at harvest. Some innovative farmers down under were using a technique that let them spray and swath at the same time.

“I didn’t see it actually operating — they just talked about it,” Halford says. So, when he got back to Canada, he got to work on a prototype based on what he’d heard.

He retrofitted his self-propelled swather with a spray boom that reached under and behind, where the swath dropped. He towed a two-wheeled tank behind to carry enough water to make the setup work at field scale. He was convinced it could offer a better way to control weeds and preserve soil moisture at a critical time of year, when growers are swamped with harvest and field work.

“We realized the benefits of it, and that’s why we were working on it,” Halford says. “If you knock your weeds out as soon as you get an opportunity, you’re going to start saving moisture.”

His goal wasn’t to launch a product — though he said that might have happened if he’d stayed in the seeder business, but that option wasn’t available once he sold the ConservaPak seeder technology to John Deere.

Some assembly required

While both Halford and Beres say the retrofit isn’t especially complex or costly, the study didn’t offer step-by-step retrofit instructions. That said, Halford’s prototype proves it’s doable for those willing to experiment with their equipment.

“You’ve just got to get the boom under the centre, where your crop is coming out of the swather,” Halford says. “We had a tank on a cart behind, and a boom tucked underneath — even under the middle.”

The key, he says, was making sure the boom delivered consistent spray coverage under the swath.

After seeing the prototype, Beres folded Halford’s design into a funding proposal for a sequencing study with winter wheat and canola.

“This is one of the best examples I’ve seen of how farmer-led ideas can feed into large-scale agronomic research,” Beres says. “Jim showed us it could work at scale, and our job was to build the science around it.”

Eliminating a field pass

The study focused on finding ways to streamline fall operations so farmers could more easily seed winter wheat following canola. In many regions, that tight window is a key reason growers hesitate to plant winter cereals.

To address that squeeze, researchers explored whether the swathing and pre-seed herbicide pass for winter wheat could be done at the same time, using Halford’s concept. Across multiple sites, they retrofitted field-scale swathers with onboard spray systems.

For their plot-scale equipment, Beres’ team was able to mount tanks directly on the swather. Beres noted they were still using commercial swathers on their big agronomy plots. They were just narrower, at 15 feet wide. And the retrofit was done at a modest price.

“The only difference between us and Jim is that we could mount the tank onto the swather,” he says.

It worked. The study showed strong weed control and no need for an additional fall herbicide application.

And importantly, when researchers worked with the Canadian Grain Commission to test the highest-risk samples, they found no glyphosate residue in most of the harvested canola. In one or two cases, trace amounts were detected, but well below the maximum residue limits (MRLs) set by the government of Canada to protect market access.

Yield bump, fewer passes

One surprise was how well winter wheat performed after swathed canola, compared to straight cut.

“We saw a yield bump with swathing,” Beres says. “We don’t know why, but it’s probably related to conserving soil moisture.”

Halford’s own experience backed that up. Though he didn’t conduct formal trials, he left unsprayed check strips in his fields and says the benefits were clear.

“The weed control was excellent,” Halford says. “We saw a big difference, especially with fall-germinating weeds that would otherwise be taking up moisture.”

Beres emphasizes the system also has potential to reduce herbicide use beyond the fall season. Because winter wheat is highly competitive, in-crop spraying often isn’t needed — particularly if the fall application is well timed.

“If you did something like a 2,4-D application in mid-October, when winter annuals start to emerge, that might be all you need,” said Beres. “We’ve shown that in multiple studies.”

Swathing versus straight cutting: the debate isn’t over

For years, western Canadian growers have increasingly moved away from swathing in favour of straight cutting. This is especially true in brown-soil zones where crop height and yield potential tend to be lower. But Beres said attitudes may be starting to shift.

“We’re seeing some pushback,” Beres says. “Guys who tried straight cutting are going back to swathing. When you’ve got a heavy crop, it can be hard to get the timing right across the field.”

That inconsistency can delay harvest and jeopardize the window for planting winter wheat, especially in regions where fall weather tends to be less forgiving.

The study also addressed a common hesitation about swathing: concerns about pod shatter. But researchers used pod shatter reduction hybrids and saw no issues in either standing or swathed canola. “We really wanted to verify that those traits work when integrated into a systems study, and they do,” Beres says. “It’s one more concern we were able to take off the table.”

An idea with agronomic legs — even as research wanes

Though Beres says the swather-sprayer concept is ready for farmers to test on their own operations, he doesn’t expect much further work on winter wheat out west — at least not any time soon.

“There’s a lack of interest in funding winter wheat agronomy, largely because of the low acreage versus spring wheat, so impact from agronomy can be tenfold or more in spring versus winter wheat, so it makes more sense to fund and conduct research in a spring wheat system,” he says. “This study, and another we published earlier this year, are kind of the swan song for large-scale winter wheat agronomy in our program.”

That other study looked at crop rotations leading into winter wheat and showed that pulses like lentil and soybean actually outperform canola in some cases. Like this study, it confirmed winter wheat’s strong fit in Prairie systems, even if it’s often overlooked.

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“The decision to straight cut canola has been increasingly made for farmers in the past eight years,” says Dane Froese, oilseed specialist with Manitoba Agriculture.

“The advent of pod shatter-tolerant genetics has made straight cutting canola much more attractive than it is to swath. By and large, farmers are defaulting to straight cutting. In fact, it’s likely over 70 per cent of producers in Manitoba do it already and that number is expected to rise.”

However, there’s no reason to park your swather in the back 40 yet — especially if you grow canola. For one thing, swathing expands harvest timing options; some farmers use a combination of swathing and straight cutting on a uniformly mature crop if they’d like to space out harvesting operations between fields.

Perhaps more crucially, swaths have a natural capability for drying down and maturing a crop without the use of costly desiccants and pre-harvest aids. Straight cutting tends to work best when the crop, canopy and stand are already well knit and uniform. However, when crops grow short of expectations, swathing can be a great tool for recharging the marketability of a low- to middle-tier canola crop.

Research has also shown canola will retain its quality in the swath better than other crops will.

“When you (swath) something like a cereal and you get rains on it, the quality usually drops fairly quickly, where canola can sit in a swath and get a massive amount of rain and will take more moisture than most other crops,” says Shawn Senko, a Saskatchewan-based agronomist with the Canola Council of Canada.

No shatter tolerance? Sorry, you have to swath

The most obvious reason for swathing is if you didn’t plant a pod shatter-tolerant canola variety in the spring. It’s fair to say most producers know what they’re planting, but if you aren’t aware of your variety’s shatter tolerance (this means resistance but is described as “tolerance” in the case of pod shatter), it may be worth a call to your seed retailer.

“If it’s a variety that shatters really easily, you almost have to swath at that point,” says Senko.

Adds Froese, “I wouldn’t recommend straight cutting those varieties at all. A lot of field hybrids and other hybrids don’t have that improved pod shatter tolerance.

“In that case, going out and swathing at that recommended 60 per cent colour change is the best practice. Lay that down into a fairly thick swath, cut stubble as high as possible to get all the seed and then run a roller over the swath, pushing the swath into the stubble so it gets knitted down and is somewhat protected from heavy winds.

“It’s usually about 10 days later that we see the crop change and move from 60 per cent seed colour change and become drier than the 10 per cent needed for harvest.”

Thin canopies benefit from straight cutting

You’ll want to check the quality of your canopy before making the decision to straight cut or swath. A canopy should be “well knit,” meaning the plants don’t sway and move independently in the wind. If they do, they’re at greater risk of pod shatter.

In cases like these, straight cutting is probably the better option, says Froese.

“Crops that are a little thinner are more susceptible to being blown about when they are placed into a swath,” says Froese.

“In the last few years, it almost seems like a guarantee that as soon as canola is swathed, we are going to get an 80- or 90-mile-per-hour wind that tends to blow swaths all over the field. Increasingly, farmers have tried to avoid swathing wherever possible and instead relying on pod shatter, high-reduction genetics to keep the crop in harvestable condition above ground and in the pods rather than going to the traditional swathing method.”

Part of keeping that crop in harvestable condition may include the use of a desiccant or other pre-harvest aid for drying down standing canola. However, these products have limits on when they can be used and still retain the crop’s marketability.

Swathing an option for variable crops and stands

As a general rule, swathing is a better choice when a crop is highly uneven or variable, says Froese. Uneven and variably mature crops can benefit from swathing because the swath hastens maturity and generally makes the crop a little more even in terms of dry down.

“We do tend to see that when we have really patchy emergence or really stagey crops like we do in flooded conditions.”

The canola industry strives for a plant stand of five to seven plants per square foot. If it’s lower than that — or higher in some areas and lower in others — that may be a sign you should look into swathing, says Froese. One reason is the individual plants in low population areas may be more likely to feature in-plant variability.

“If you’re in that three- to four-plants-per-square-foot area, swathing may be an advantage. Because of the non-uniformity of the canola crop, we might see a main stem that is completely ripe while the side branches could still be potentially throwing out flowers along the side.

“If a farmer isn’t willing or doesn’t have a contract that allows for the application of a pre-harvest aid or desiccant, then swathing as a mechanical means of terminating that crop is the best option.”

Then there’s the simple fact that higher density plants knit together better and run through a combine header much more uniformly and easily than low density stands. Leaving swaths of these subpar stands — not to mention haphazard, stagey and otherwise haggard crops — can help better prepare them for combining.

“Swathing can help even out some of those physical disparities in the field, making the canola swath a little more uniform and able to feed into the combine a lot better as well as allowing time for the crop to dry down when it might not have enough time when you’re running into a late season,” says Froese.

Fewer concerns of locking in green seed

Another scenario in which swathing might be the better choice is late-seeded or reseeded crops. This is a case where swathing’s natural desiccation can come in handy.

“If the farmer went in there and reseeded some of the sloughs and low-lying patches several weeks after the remainder of the crop, (swathing) would certainly be an option and might be well suited if they wanted to hasten the ripening process in those spots, not to mention trying to achieve full yield potential without having to break out the sprayer and spray every little patch, which could make it more non-uniform,” says Froese.

There are also less concerns over locking in green seed when swathing compared with using desiccants and pre-harvest aids before straight cutting, he says.

“The natural dry-down process with swathing is a little bit more forgiving in terms of allowing chlorophyll to dissipate from the green seed instead of freezing it in time and locking it in like a desiccant might if sprayed at the incorrect time.”

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Versatile

With the first-ever Versatile four-wheel drive tractor driving out the door of the Winnipeg assembly plant in 1966, 2016 marks the 50th anniversary of tractor production for the brand. Although machines built there have worn a couple of paint colours and marquees over the years, the original name has long since returned, and the company is celebrating with the release of 50 Limited Legendary Edition models that feature throwback paint schemes to the early Series II models.

The company will also be giving away a classic 1966 Chevy pickup truck decked out in the same classic livery. Watch for it at farm shows this summer.

Case IH

Last July Case IH celebrated 50 years of production at its Grand Island, Nebraska, plant, which is home to the brand’s Axial-Flow combines, along with some of sister company New Holland’s CR machines. Axial-Flow models began coming down the assembly line in Grand Island with the introduction of the AFX8010 series in 2003. The following year manufacturing of the 2388 Axial-Flow series was relocated from East Moline, Illinois, to Grand Island.

Harvesting research and development along with product testing is also located at Grand Island.

New Holland

At a press event held at the company’s New Holland, Pennsylvania, headquarters in 2014, NH was proud to point out it, too, had passed some significant milestones.

75 years ago the company that originally started as a local machine shop eventually bought the rights to a square baler with a unique — and for the the first time — reliable knotter system. 2014 also marked a total of 120 years of business under the New Holland brand name.

There were other anniversaries to mention that day as well. Fifty years of mower conditioner production, as well as 40 years or round balers and combines.

Across the Atlantic, the company had other anniversaries to mention. It celebrated 50 years of tractor production at its Basildon England assembly plant. On May 15, 1964, Ford’s farm equipment division opened a tractor assembly plant there. Since then, that facility has been in continuous operation churning out tractors, with ownership eventually evolving into the current New Holland.

To mark the Basildon factory’s golden anniversary, NH unveiled the limited edition “Golden Jubilee” versions of its T6.160 and T7.270 Auto Command tractors at the World Ag Expo in Tulare, California.

John Deere

In 2013 John Deere first introduced members of the farm media to its W235 self-propelled windrower at an event in Columbus, Ohio. The debut of that machine was held 50 years after the first green swather made its appearance. The new W235 included a host of engineering updates and for the fist time used the same cab previously introduced on the brand’s S Series combines.

At that same 2013 event the company also displayed a classic 4020 tractor to mark another anniversary. That series was first introduced in 1963, 50 years before.

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The post “Hesstonizing” hay appeared first on Grainews.

From then on, it was a little like a rock concert. Music played and lights flashed as the curtain pulled back to reveal the milestone machine. The WR9870 on stage was the 100,000th swather to be built in that facility. Now part of AGCO, it has been turning out haying equipment since 1955 when the equipment was branded only as Hesston.

It’s a name that is familiar to all Canadian farmers. Under AGCO ownership, the equipment has been wearing the “Hesston by Massey Ferguson” label since the two brands merged in 2006.

“This is a great day for us as AGCO employees,” said Bill Hurley, vice president of sales for North America. We can definitely say we’ve arrived. 100,000 swathers; that’s something no other manufacturer can say. Not just manufacturers in the United States and North America, but anywhere else in the world.”

“Anytime you’re celebrating 100,000 of anything, that’s a pretty big milestone,” added Robert Crain, AGCO’s senior vice president and general manager for North and South America.

There will be six “special edition” machines built to celebrate the milestone. But number one of six is the official 100,000th machine. And its new owners, the family behind Moo Mountain Milk dairy farm of Idaho, were on hand to see the presentation and take possession of their swather.

• PHOTO GALLERY: Factory workers assemble a Massey Ferguson swather

The milestone also coincides with the 70th anniversary of operations at the Hesston plant. In all, the Hesston factory turns out a combined total of about 42 machines of all types each day. And many of the components for those machines are fabricated right from flat steel on site, a process that is common in agricultural assembly plants but differs a lot from automotive plants that often only handle component assembly.

“Half of all parts are made here from scratch,” said Robert Cieko, vice president of manufacturing at Hesston, as he guided a group through the plant’s assembly area. “We’ve been making windrowers here at this site for 60 years. We are definitely committed to two things: reliability and quality hay products. Without those two things we would not have existed for 70 years.”

Typically at events like this, it is management executives and marketing staff that represent the brand to visitors and the media, and those people were certainly front and centre at this unveiling. But there was one other group present that figured prominently in the festivities that many visitors didn’t expect to see: the crew of factory workers who actually built the swather. In fact, those employees formed a kind of reception line to shake hands and thank visitors and the buyers of the milestone machine.

“People (plant staff) are always curious about who buys the products,” said Cieko. “It’s beneficial for employees to see who really pays their paycheque, and that is the customer.”

For a video look at the 100,000th swather reveal, watch the e-QuipTV episode, “Team building at AGCO” at Grainews.ca.

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“With the straw market that we have today in our variant livestock sector, John Deere is capitalizing on that opportunity,” said Jeremy Unruh, John Deere’s product line marketing manager. “We’re hitting where the market’s hot.”

1. Self-propelled swather

The W155 self-propelled windrower replaces the W150 that was introduced three years ago. (“The model number indicates 155 engine horsepower,” Unruh said.) “This a Final Tier 4 engine with a 4.5L Litre John Deere engine. Our previous model had a Cummins. We’re transitioning that to a John Deere engine.”

The W155 can be transported 9.5 per cent faster than John Deere’s other Windrowers with the same horsepower.

“We’ll continue to maintain the same header options that we had.”

2. Triple mounted mower conditioner

There are five new models of mower conditioners in John Deere’s 2016 lineup. These replace the current 131 and 388 models.

Two of the new models (F310R and F350R) are front machines with cutting widths of 3.1 and 3.5 metres. They have a “sleeker design at the edges,” Unruh said, for better operator visibility.

Combining either of these two fronts with two different configurations of rear machines (two 3.1 metres or two 3.5 metres) allows for three different configurations: R870R, R950R or R990R with cutting widths of 8.7, 9.5 and 9.9 metres.

3. 459E round baler

“Our 459E is a great little baler,” Unruh said.

“It’s coming in at a competitive customer price point, to help us get in there with some of our customers who aren’t quite as large, who don’t need the bells and whistles we have on some of our other products.”

“With the 459E,” Unruh said, “we will give our customers the option of having twine or net.” Using net wrap, John Deere has calculated, is 75 per cent more efficient than twine, and results in 30 to 60 per cent less spoilage.

Diamond Belts cover more than 90 per cent of the bale chamber. “Our competitors in the same space have wider gaps,” Unruh said, “that allow more hay to be lost.”

An adjustable hitch will allow users to hook up to any tractor.

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But this updated and completely re-engineered version brings the concept into the 21st century, eliminating some of the disadvantages inherent in the original ‘80s design, according to company owner Greg Honey.

“One of the biggest changes we’ve made from back then till now, is the ability to get it on and off quickly,” he says. “That was one of the biggest drawbacks, the time to mount and dismount. This one is, like, 20 minutes.”

“When it’s off it has to be transportable down the highway. It has to narrow up to eight and a half feet wide, and we wanted to allow it to do that without a lot of extra work. To get this one into full transport mode, it would probably take you half an hour to take it off and get it ready.”

The prototype displayed in Regina uses two 25-foot headers to provide a single-pass working width of 50 feet. “Right now we’ve only re-introduced the 50-foot, which is two 25s,” he adds.

The swather attachment can be mounted on any two-wheel drive or MFWD tractor with three-point linkage on the front and rear, which is another major change in design from the previous versions. “Back in those days there was very little (three-point) linkage, even on the rear,” he adds. “Today you can get them on both ends.

Aside from the linkages, to handle the Honey Bee headers, tractors will need up to six hydraulic remotes.

“You need front and rear three-point and rear PTO,” he continues. “And the more remotes you have the better. We need four on the rear and two on the front. What we have to do is put a remote multiplier on (most tractors) to accomplish that.”

The headers used are the same draper-style Grain Belt Swather models the company supplies for attachment directly to dedicated swathers. And they could be equipped with any of the normally-available options, although the prototype model on display in Regina had only basic features.

“We haven’t really set the price yet,” says Honey. “We didn’t put a lot of bells and whistles on this one, because we wanted to keep the costs in line. We didn’t add remote reel speed, remote canvas speed. That stuff you can add.”

In fact, the model on display at CFPS is one of only two prototypes the company has built so far. The other was sold to a customer in Kazakhstan. Honey Bee has decided to show the remaining model at events like CFPS and gauge customer reaction before committing to full-scale production.

“We’re just seeing what the interest is, again,” Honey says. “We decided to bring this one to the show to see what people would think.” †

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