You guys are making me want to harvest wheat SO bad....but mine is just not quite ready, yet. I do not know what our wheat is going to yield, but "the straw" is surely there! Freeze damage was hit and miss in our neck of the woods...mostly miss, I would guess. If I had to guess-timate how much our wheat will average, I would say about 60-65 bpa (100% dryland). There are more heads than not with 4 grains per mesh; but then on the other hand, there are a few small grains in some of those same heads.
I am like the most of you here...I want to have the grain in the bin, NOT on the ground! Pulling back on that orange lever is the best way to prevent volunteer wheat.
One time, I was cutting with this old man, and we stopped our machines to look for carry-over/throwing wheat out the back end. He contended that if he could put his [big] hand on the ground, and within that hand print find only 5 grains of wheat, he thought he was doing a "more than swell" job of harvesting. I have never really stopped and thought that "formula" through all the way, but my gut instinct tells me that would equate to quite a bit of carry-over by the time it's all said and done..
I sew a wheat called Cutter, and also some Scout. Both of these varieties thresh very easily. By the time they are mature, screaming really loud might do a little threshing, inofitself. Seems like 4.0-4.5 mph was the ground speed I remember in 50-60 bpa wheat (that was with my 930R platform). I'll admit that I am a little bt anal, though, when it comes to combining correctly. I have a real problem blowing through a crop that took the better part of a year to mature/produce...a good yield (50 bpa +) and a good price ($5.65 last time I checked) makes it even harder to close your eyes & mind and push the orange lever forward!