[shaulinis]

Hi
I know it is loads info about the white caps on the wheat. Well we are not used to that it is not so common in our place. unfortunately this year this is a problem for us. If some one could offer some quick solution with settings I would appreciate that. We have ST and AFX rotors.
Thank you

 

[doorknob]

White caps seem to be a bigger issue this year than ever.

I have all helical concaves and grates and covered the entire front concave with a cover plate. Transport vanes in neutral all the way front to back. I have 12 Kile 504sa bars. http://www.kilemfg.com/1.html And 8 of the newest Kile bar that is yet un-named, but we use the description "rotor sweep". (the bar is heavily influenced from the gleaner hyperizing folks) I run the concaves very tight. Rotor speed 900 empty with a specialty rotor configuration.

So far in winter wheat I have been very happy with this combo. It has got a nearly cap free tank sample and the crackage is very acceptable.
When I get to the even harder threshing spring wheat next week sometime, I may have to add a couple rows of the Kile 503ra bars to really bang things up in there. I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

 

[scandinavian]

I'll agree with doorknob. Try to tresh it hard. Dont put to much through the return, your grain quality will go completely haywire..... no white caps but alot of cracked kernels.

 

[shaulinis]

any body using standard concaves

is it any solution does not involving cutting and welding?
By the way we never had grain caking problem unless some loose chains would squash them

 

[doorknob]

What is a white cap, and how did it get into your combine hopper to start with?

IMO, a white cap is a kernel or even multiple kernels of wheat still attached to the glume and often a small piece of stem, usually the tip or end of the head of wheat.

IMO, the head of wheat hits a high speed threshing device and very quickly the head is broken into pieces in attempts to get the grain kernels out of the glume and seperate them from the stems and other chaff. If the tip of the wheat head is broken away from the rest of the head instantly upon contact with the high speed threshing device, it can still be threshed if it can be contained within the threshing mechanism long enough. However, if there is no means, or not enough means to keep that portion of the wheat head in the threshing mechanism long enough to be threshed, then it can be released to the cleaning mechanism in tact.

IMO once in the cleaning mechanism, no further means of efficient threshing are available. Rethreshers are not nearly as efficient as the main threshing mechanism. Once the unthreshed portion of the wheat head has entered the cleaning mechanism, it can either continue on through and be released to the ground, or it can be allowed into the combine hopper. That is the choice the operator makes when setting the clearences and air speed of the cleaning unit.

So, IMO, it is best to install a means to contain all parts of the wheat head in the threshing mechanism untill it is completely threshed. Only way I know of that is bolt on is a cover plate setup for the concave. Some also use a clip on product known as "interuptors". This product, which I have zero personal experience with, is supposed to be installed between the welded crossbars of the concave and act as a crossbar space filler. This is supposed to serve two purposes. One is to greatly decrease the amount of space between crossbars where the white cap can fall through. The other is to reduce the material retardation throughout that part of the concave by not allowing the material to deflect between the crossbars and become held there for a slit second.

For my theories of dealing with unthreshed head pieces, I choose the cover plates for the outside of the concave. This leaves the crossbar dimensions alone which allow for greater threshing abilities, but is a means of keeping the unthreshed wheat head parts in the threshing mechanism for a greater period of time. Hopefully long enough for the kernels to become seperated from the glume and stem pieces.

Increasing the aggression of the threshing mechanism by installing larger more aggressive rasp bars, is really only helpfull if you have limited means of containment. Rather if you only have one cover plate, or the seperation unit is compromised too much by installing more covers over the threshing mechanism, then more threshing needs to be done in a shorter distance in the threshing mechanism.

 

[derf72]

Some guy's around here have had luck by actually opening up the concave slightly and keeping the combine full. This gives you more grain on grain threshing and apparently works in some situations. The grain on grain threshing is a lot easier on the kernel as well. It might be worth a try.

 

[shaulinis]

This is what we usually doe. More clearance less RPM = more grain on grain action.
Cover plates looks like good idea we should try it on winter barley too

 

[grandview]

First, white caps are a fact of life but you can minimize them. I was at a combine clinic today and with my previous experience here`s my advice. Open the concave a little bit maybe till about 5 you want the crop to be able to ``roll around`` in the concave to get the grain rubbing on grain. (If you close it right up you grind the kernals to dust and you wont even know your lossing them.) Increase ground speed keep the rotor full, this ensures constant grain on grain rubbing. Intrupter bars or hard thresh modules on the 10 and 20`s also help to keep the grain rolling (the rub bars are pushing the crop and the concaves are trying to stop the crop causing it to roll the more bars the more starting stopping the more threshing) Adjust the front cage vanes to a slower posistion keeping the grain in the front (threshing) area longer. DO NOT use filler plates 100% of the threshing and 90% of the seperating happens in the first half of the rotor the area above the concaves. If you block part of that it forces the back end of the rotor to do more then its share of the work and often resulting in rotor loss. The guy doing the clinic also said 90+% of the grain needs to be separated first time through any less the return is over loaded and it will appear that it is not doing its job but infact it can t. On the 10s and 20s the rotor cage is full of holes closing the ones above module 2 also keeps the white caps in for an extra rubbing. On 88s the holes only start above the grate area.
Just my 2 cents.

 

[doorknob]

So this cover plate idea wont work then?

 

[doorknob]

I confess, that is not the cover setup I use for grains, it is the cover setup for clovers.

I do use the front cover for grains, but the middle and rear are for clovers only.

 

[grandview]

I checked out a cool website, got it from my dealer. www.caseihharvesting.com and go to the settings link. There's some good info on settings for wheat.

 

[stubblejumper]

Is anyone running those cover plates on top of the rotor cage? Just wondering if I need to have a set on hand.

Interesting link grandview, thanks!

 

[grandview]

I don't think so but if you drive slow enough that hte grain has time to separate in the grate area it might. I think youll loose a lot of capacity!

 

[procutter7]

no problems thrashing until we get into Glenn spring wheat. Have 8120s. Three with large tube rotors and one with the small tube. Tryed the hard threshing concaves on two machines placing them in the L1 and R2 spots. Not much difference. Just put in interrupter bars in the same two and the small tube. just a little difference still whitecaps. Is this Glenn variety that tough to thrash or what's the deal?

 

[north1]

Glenn is like threshing barbed wire and trying to knock out the barbs. Probably the hardest threshing wheat you will encounter. Only way to rectify the problem is to not seed the crap.

 

[scott]

case makes interrupter bars that can be installed to help, yes glenn wheat is a pita, all colors are having issues, scott.

 

[cnhservicetech]

my area in southwest north dakota the worst wheats are glenn shoto howard and briggs. we like to run a hard thresh kit in the L1 R1 spot. This year we atarted making covers for the L1 and R1 spot also weld washer to concave piece of tin and lynch pin. We like to run concaves tight with rotor speed 950 to 1050 or more....plat with it. Fan speed as been 1000 to 1150 upper sieve 15-18 lower seive 9-13 ground speed 4.5 -5 MPH with 40 foot head. We cover about 90% of the cage on both side and also install a chopper cover to prevent overload of the seives. Glenn we got right around 1.5% doc this season.....difficult harvest

 

[bigbigred]

Open concave to the thickness of the wheat heads you are threshing, then run rotor speed fast enough to do the threshing and keep the combine full. Load the rotor so you get grain on grain threshing, these are rotors not conventionals.

 

[okpanhandle]

I'm a little late to the party, but we had pretty good luck this year by opening the concaves a bunch and running the rotor a little slower than usual. When we started harvest we forgot to close the concaves and Dad made a few rounds with it still at 7, which is what we had for sunflowers. He said it was an excellent sample (I wasn't there at the time), but that's so against conventional wisdom that we decided to close them. We set the concaves at 5 to see what would happen, and settled on 980 for the rotor speed. It ended up working pretty good.

It's hard to say if our reduced whitecaps came from the combine settings or the good moisture during the winter and spring. During the drought of previous years every variety was harder to thresh. We'll need another year to experiment.