A series of harvester workshops will roll-out across the South Australian and Victorian grainbelts in September to bring together harvester specialists, industry experts and researchers to give grain growers the latest advice ahead of this season’s harvest.
The Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) Harvester Set-up Workshops will be hosted by AIR EP in South Australia and the Birchip Cropping Group in Victoria in collaboration with local growers:
GRDC Southern Panel chair and Rutherglen grain grower Andrew Russell has attended past harvester set-up workshops. He said they are an “awesome resource” and one of the best parts of attending is listening to the conversations between growers, skilled header operators and other machinery experts.
“There is not a time when I have been to a workshop when I haven’t picked up more than one thing to change in my harvesting operations,” said Mr Russell.
“Growers are harvesting experts in their own right – using machines for many hours over different seasons and conditions.
“When you combine this knowledge with the knowledge of the machinery experts at the workshops you find yourself part of useful conversations where you can learn a lot of practical tips and tricks.
“Maximising the performance of your machines is very important, but more importantly it is about reducing losses – and these workshops cover this from different perspectives.
“Everyone can always learn something new – whether it is about running your harvester more productively, gaining efficiencies, or measuring and reducing losses.”
He added that with headers becoming bigger, more automated and more powerful, growers need to be even more on top of their operations because if something goes wrong, it can have a big impact, fast.
Grain losses at harvest cost producers millions of dollars each season.
Of these losses, up to half could be recovered with adjustments to harvester settings, machinery sensor calibrations and equipment modifications.
Harvester specialists, industry experts and researchers will join grain growers at the harvester set-up workshops to share the latest advice ahead of this season’s harvest. Photo: Courtney Ramsey, GRDC.
The workshops provide a grower-friendly forum for capturing knowledge to reduce risks at harvest and maximise efficiency.
GRDC grower relations manager – south, Courtney Ramsey, said measuring and understanding harvest grain loss and taking steps to reduce it is one of the single most effective practices growers can implement to put more profit in their pockets.
“GRDC is investing in these workshops to help growers work out how to adjust their harvester set-up and operations to economically reduce harvest losses and make informed decisions on adoption of harvest weed seed control and other relevant harvest practices,” said Ms Ramsey.
“The lineup of speakers features a mix of industry experts sharing their advice and insights focusing on technology types without providing product-specific information – helping us keep the information independent and broadly applicable.”
With its partners, GRDC has run the workshops since 2000, attracting hundreds of people to the series each season. This year features international harvest specialist Murray Skayman and will cover:
- Understanding the impact of harvest loss, how to measure it, how to change your harvester to reduce losses, grain storage.
- How to set-up for effective harvest weed seed control using mills systems, chaff decks and chaff lining.
- Reducing the risk of harvester fires.
- Improving harvester capacity and efficiency.
- Managing harvest operations, productivity and economics.
Register for the free Harvester Set-up Workshops via the GRDC website or contact AIR EP (eo@airep.com.au) for the SA workshops or BCG (kelly@bcg.org.au) for the Victorian workshops.
The GRDC Harvester Set-up Guide will be distributed at the workshops and is available to download from the GRDC website. It aims to help growers understand where harvest losses are most likely to occur, how to measure them and how to adjust harvester set-up to maximise profitability.