Ferrie: It's not Halloween but Corn Losses are Scary

Four inches of rain and 30 mph winds have pounded central Illinois corn, slowing harvest to a crawl. As of Monday, there was only about 25% of the crop left to bring out of the field, and it’s taking a beating.

“Harvest loss this season is definitely one for the record books,” says Ferrie, Farm Journal Field Agronomist and owner of Crop-Tech Consulting, Heyworth, Ill.

Ferrie likes to see farmers keep their corn harvest losses at or under 1.5 bu. per acre. Average losses for 2021 are way above that amount.

“This year the average is more like 7 bu. to 10 bu. on the ground, and we’ve measured as high as 30 bu. average yield loss in a field,” he says.

The combination of very dry corn, poor test weights, rubbery cobs and poor standability make it a challenge to control losses. As conditions deteriorate further, Ferrie says harvest teams will need to continue monitoring the crop and evaluating how to keep more of it – not an easy undertaking when it’s been flattened by rain and wind.

Ferrie says farmers can reduce their corn harvest losses by up to half by making some adjustments to their combines.

“Working with your deck plate settings and header and ground speeds are big in adjusting for reduced head shatter in this dry corn,” he says.

Harnessing available technology is also useful, like putting brushes on gathering chains. Another good step in harvesting dry corn is to use reels and end cones, which can help you achieve more even flow through the combine, making it easier to manage the threshing loss as well.

“As combine speeds have slowed due to the down corn, header speeds must come down as well,” Ferrie advises. “Header speeds running too fast are going to be tearing a lot of this corn out of the ground and bringing root balls and all into the machine.

 “In some cases, we've had to change drive sprockets on the head to get it slow enough,” he adds.

In down corn, Ferrie says you must open up your stripper plates to get good grain flow into the head.

“If you time your gathering chain paddles so they're opposing each other, instead of staggered, that along with opening up your deck plates is helping the flow and reducing the amount of corn pulled out of the ground. That helps the flow into the head,” he says.

“I know we stagger the paddles for high capacity, but there's no need in this down corn,” Ferrie adds. “Take your ear savers off, especially if they're the stiff ones.”

In the following Boots In The Field podcast, Ferrie details how you can tip the head a little, nose down, to get the gathering chains a little closer to the ground. That also can help improve the feed of down corn into the combine.

Listen here to get more of his recommendations.