Question about shelling corn at night...

[Anonymous-0]

Have heard from more than a few people to not shell early in the morning or after dark when the dew is on.. I thought people ran nearly around the clock sometimes.. I enjoy a little late-night ground working in the spring, is it really not a good thing to be out in fall after dark and dew fall and try to run? I don't figure a little dew is going to affect moisture content, and I've run my 715 right up til just dark enough to see with no problem.. any reason I can't run later if I'm not just shoving it through there?

 

[IaGary]

Been at this farming thing for 35 years. Never heard that one before.

It's kinda hard to combine beans with a dew on them. We run corn with dew on it all the time here in Iowa. Never heard we can't.

Years ago when we ear picked alot of corn, the corn would pick cleaner with the dew on it.

Ever hear of a harvest moon?

Do you know why it is called a harvest moon?

Gary

 

[Bob Bancroft]

My old Gleaner corn head is fussy about damp stalks. Also I've had damp silks start sticking to sieves and walkers. No issue with the corn itself. Yet I've seen neighbors(probably 90% JD here) run in the rain!

 

[zooeyhall]

I have 160 acres, half corn and half soybeans. Because I work during the day, I have to do much harvesting at night.

I've never had trouble with combining corn (I have a IH 303) at night or even when there is some frost on it. A light rain shower, however, can cause wrapping and dry silk accumulation. But just high humidity and even some dew doesn't cause a problem.

Soybeans are different. They need to be combined on a dry sunny low humidity day. Even the high humidity you can get after sundown makes the stalks and pods tough.

 

[OliverGuy]

That moon helps at night, that's for sure. You can shell corn just about whenever you want. I've had to do it with heavy dew, frost, light rain, whatever. Sometimes you just have to get it done. Beans are different. 30 minutes later into an evening can make those plants go from decent cutting to really tough.

 

[MattLF9]

I did custom corn last year for a neighbor in the rain and my Gleaner F with an OLD FG438 corn head did not have any problems. You might need to look at your snapping rolls once and see if they are worn out.

 

[Anonymous-0]

Cousin's 9400 JD does not like wet corn stalks because of the shorter straw walkers than bigger JD models. We also try to keep the fodder as light as possible to help the no-till planting in the spring. We shell at night quite a bit but will wait for stalks to dry (mid-morning) with a real heavy dew or rain from the previous day.

 

[cadet trooper]

Have had some problems running corn in a heavy frost and light snow with builup on the chaffer especially on the Gleaners with such a high velocity cleaning fan. The walker machines had a little carryover with kernels sticking to the wet fodder. I have run soybeans well into the night usually on a night with no dew usually just before a big storm but usually have to shut down shortly after dark when we would see long bean stocks coming off the straw spreader on the rotary machine and when the engine seemed to be laboring more than usual. When we stopped running beans changed over to corn and have the buggies and bins full by the time the semis returned from dumping their beans. That would be a typical harvest night. With over 4000acres we would run around the clock.

 

[Harvestmoonpuller]

Somebody knows about the harvest moon? Best nites of the year to be outside with that orange moon lighting up the sky.

 

[MN Scott]

Corn that's tough with dew combines nice because you don't have all the leaves stripping off and running thru the machine. Corn in the rain tho almost requires a plastic head to keep stuff flowing thru. On some dry warm sunny days with some hybrids I have to cut my speed in half because of all the top stalks and leaves that strip off and overwhelm the walkers. I know my dad used to say with the 2MH mounted picker he would have to stop picking in the afternoon on a dry day as all the trash would plug the husking rolls. It also made breathing quit a challenge, ah the good old days.

 

[Anonymous-0]

makes no difference in corn, as for soybeans you can tell when it starts getting tough at night and if the breeze keeps blowing sometimes you can run all night, if people around here only ran in fair weather they'd never get done.

 

[cadet trooper]

Let me clear something up during my tenure as a farm manager of this fairly large farm operation we ran at one time or another a JD7700, old an new series JD8820, 1980 ACN6,1984 ACL3, and Case IH 1660 all with 8row corn heads also a NHTR85 and 95 with 20' grain tables and when I left a Case IH 2188 w/1230 cornhead all of them had their own quirks running nights. I've gotta say the NHTR machines handled beans about as good as I've seen in most diverse weather conditions. IMHO

 

[flying belgian]

Yes. The full moon in Oct is the harvest moon because in Oct the moon is closest to the earth which makes its reflection to earth the brightest of the year. When picking corn by hand they could see well enough to pick all night. Hence the harvest moon.