Calmer Corn Heads

[mvp farms]

Anyone got a corn head with any Calmer products on it?  I think for sure we will be doing the gathering chain kit.  How do the Chopper or Crusher rolls work?

[tree fmr]

My brother has the gathering chain kit on a JD 20 inch 6 row head attached to a 6600.  Can drive 2x as fast and uses 1/2 the fuel.  Neighbor stopped, also driving a 6600, jumped the fence and said we were running too fast, after riding along he went and bought the kit.  All the trash goes under the combine instead of thru it.  Well worth the money!

[buckfarmer]

Is a 20 in six row a tight fit getting between next rows on that combine.

[tree fmr]

Sorry that is an 8 row 20 inch.  We plant with a 8 row planter, it is a tight fit so driving a little wide is good, never want to drive too close to that row!  GPS and auto steer makes this easier to do.  The thing we really like about the 20 inch rows is we can drive 90 degrees out.  So we plant around the steep hills then can combine up and down them.  Or if the corn goes down we can combine in whatever direction needed to pick up the corn.  I didn't think it would work like this but works very well with very little corn lost at the head.

Just purchased another combine with duals so the 8 row head is not quite wide enough so the plan is to upgrade everything to 12 row 20 inch.  With a 60 foot boom sprayer this will put every field operation on the same tracks, we do all no-till and prior test strips show a bushel lag where we drive.  We have fields that have not had any tillage for 20+ years.

[buckfarmer]

Do you attribute being able to harvest across the rows more to narrow rows or the Calmer chains.

[tree fmr]

I think going across the rows is due to the 20 inch rows since the farthest a stock has to move is 10 inches.  The calmer chains has a lot to do with processing the stocks.  They allow the stocks to go under the head while at the same time catching the ears.  This really helps with downed corn as the head rarely plugs no matter how bad the corn is down.  Hard to explain until you see it work, the speed changes between the chains and rollers just work much better together.  I don't remember the fuel cost savings but it is quite impressive.  Not to mention the time savings.