John Deere has recently announced not only the new X Series of combine coming to North America, but also an entirely new header lineup including drapers, corn heads, and a belt pickup.
Hot on the tails of the X9 announcement, RealAgriculture’s Bernard Tobin sits down with John Deere’s Harvesting Product Manager Matt Badding to talk about the accompanying drapers, corn heads, and belt pickup, listen in here:
The new headers fit the new X series, and most S and T series combines. The new headers include HDR Rigid Cutterbar drapers, RDF HydraFlex drapers, CR and CF Corn Heads and a BP15 Belt Pickup and are designed to “help achieve maximum harvesting capacity while minimizing grain loss under a wide range of crops and conditions,” John Deere says in its press release.
The HDR Rigid Cutterbar draper, in combination with optional John Deere Grain Saver draper belts, touts reducing cutterbar loss of canola by up to 25 per cent when compared with traditional smooth draper belts.
“These easy-to-use drapers effectively pick up and sweep the down or lodged crop across the cutterbar to recover more crop thanks to a consistent distance between the reel fingers and cutterbar, improved reel range and increased reel-drive motor torque” says Matt Badding in the press release. The new rigid drapers are available in widths from 35 to 50 feet.
The new RDF HydraFlex draper, an update on the 700FD, offers new features to reduce grain loss, and is compatible with the new X Series, the S Series and T Series models dating back to 2012. The HydraFlex draper has a two-speed centre feed section, allowing operators to slow down the feed drum and centre feed belt by 20 per cent, compared to the 700FD, “mitigating just as much loss as we can,” says Badding. Operators can also go from low to high speed to save grain from easy-shelling crops, such as soybeans.
For the corn growers out there, the CR Rigid Corn Heads boast a 19-inch cross auger and rolled auger floor to improve grain handling. “The space between the auger flighting and rolled auger floor minimize the opportunity for ears to pinch or grind, reducing grain damage during harvest,” says the release.
Active end fenders are an add-on for the new corn head that pull more stalks into the head as the combine moves through the field, assisting in harvesting leaning, down or flat crop. Tire track and wear can be reduced by stalk deflectors that press standing corn stalk to the ground, fracturing them at the base as the head passes over them.
Another option for corn growers is the CF Folding Corn Head, which eliminates the need for a header trailer for transporting between fields. They have a fold cycle time of 60 seconds when the corn head if connected to a Deere S700, or about 40 seconds if connected to the new X9 combine.
The BP15 Belt Pickup is meant for small grains and oilseed growers, delivers a 20 percent faster feed rate than the Deere 615P, and is equipped with a wider feederhouse opening with adjustable feed auger flighting and tines. The factory-installed crop shield prevents crop from building up and laying on the feederhouse, “any loose grain that’s being flicked up or thrown up, that way can be captured,” says Badding.
“Operators will spend less time making adjustments and more time harvesting,” says Badding. “For example, no tools are needed to adjust the height of the large, 20-inch gauge wheels for varying windrow conditions and crop types.”
To round it out, each of the new drapers, corn heads, and the belt pick-up come with a header control unit (HCU) to communicate seamlessly with the combine by saving head-specific factory calibration settings and sending header-width information to the combine for accurate yield mapping.
John Deere will start taking orders for the new drapers, corn heads, and belt pickup later this summer.
Related: Check out the new X Series combine
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