Exploring the Value of Tall Stubble - Rex Cunningham, Mannville AB.

Author: Sandra Taillieu

Date Created: February 19, 2009

Last Reviewed: February 23, 2009

Rex Cunningham and his family have been farming north of Mannville since 1968 and have been in the seed growing business since 1978. Rex grows a variety of annual crops on his farm in the thin-black transitional soil zone of north-central Alberta.


	^{Rex Cunningham and his son Dave}

Rex isn’t afraid to try something different to study its potential for his farm.

Two years ago, Rex acquired a 24 foot Shelbourne-Reynolds stripper header for his Case 2388 combine. He wanted to see if he could improve the economics and efficiency of harvesting on his farm. He already had a disc seeder and the stripper header seemed like a natural fit. Rex is excited about his new system and the added benefits of tall anchored stubble.

Rex has found the greatest benefits of using the stripper header in his cereal crops. “The main advantages of using the stripper header are time and fuel savings at harvest, and increased snow-trapping through the winter,” he says.

“The stripper header has an octagonal drum in the front with stainless steel stripper fingers on them,” Rex explains. “As you go forward, the drum rotates in the opposite direction to which you are going at about 600 rpm, strips off the heads and throws them upward. The heads hit a deflector and fall into the table auger where they are collected and moved into the feeder house.“

Last year, Rex had an 87 bu/ac triticale crop and he was able to fill the hopper every ten minutes harvesting with the stripper header.

“The efficiency of the stripper header is how quickly you can harvest,” Rex explains. “Triticale straw is tougher than wheat and it would have taken much more time and fuel to conventionally harvest this big of a triticale crop in a cut and spread system.

“Less material moving through the combine means the machine doesn’t have to work as hard and it uses less fuel. Wear and tear on the combine is also reduced.”

“If you don’t gather the straw you don’t have to spread it,” says Rex who is happy with the increased efficiency of his new harvesting system.

Rex has also used his stripper header in lodged crops.

“We learned to adjust the height lower and go slower,” says Rex, “But with the stripper header, we are able to harvest all the heads and it actually works very well. In lodged crops, more straw is pulled into the machine and we can easily seed through these patches in the spring.”

Rex hasn’t had a problem with shatter on any of the crops he has harvested with the stripper header.

“Even in barley it isn’t a problem,” says Rex. “Material is brought into the machine very quickly and there is enough force to keep it moving through.” Only chaff is spread out the back as most of the straw is left standing behind the combine.

Last year, Rex grew flax and harvested it with the stripper header. “Flax has its own unique combining challenges compared to wheat,” Rex explains. “The flax had a greener straw and so I had to be careful not to run the stripper header too low or it would break the top half of the plant off and take too much tough straw into the machine. That could have wrapped and made a mess but I didn’t have any difficulty.”

Rex has not used the stripper header in the canola. “I think the header pushing down on canola ripe enough to harvest would shell it out before it could be extracted by the stripper. The straight-cut draper works well so I still use that on my canola.”

Weed Control

As a certified seed grower, Rex does not have the same options for weed control as commercial growers. Without the option of pre-harvest glyphosate controlling perennial weeds like quack grass and Canada thistle is a challenge in his direct seeded system.

Post-harvest Canada thistle control

“Using the stripper header keeps the Canada thistle plants intact,” says Rex. “This gives us the opportunity to go out post-harvest and spray for thistles which works reasonably well.”


^{Post harvest Canada Thistle Control}

Seeding into Tall Stubble

In the spring, Rex direct-seeds into tall stubble using a Flexicoil 6000 with a Barton double-shoot disc opener which he has had for the last 11 years.

“Each opener has its own packer that regulates depth control which is good on our rolling land,” Rex explains. “It works well in tall stubble and in two years of using the stripper header, we haven’t had any problems with plugging at seeding.”

Rex has found that when harvesting a heavy cereal crop, the stripper header is a good fit with his current seeding system.

“With the stripper header, most of the straw remains standing at seeding time,” Rex explains. “We’ve had less hair pinning issues seeding with a disc into the tall stubble left behind the stripper header than we did seeding into the short stubble in a conventional cut and spread system.”

“After the seeding operation, a significant amount of the straw is levelled and by the following year, most of it has broken


	^{Seeding canola into tall stubble May 24, 08}

down,” says Rex.

The stripper header leaves enough straw to increase snow catch in the field. “In 2007, we measured a snow catch of 18 inches in the field and 24-26 inches by the road,” says Rex. “The extra snow on the west side of the field had blown across the road from my neighbour’s field. On the south and east sides of the field, tall stubble in my field kept snow from blowing across the roads which made the county snow plows happy. We don’t have that much snow every year and there is no easy way to quantify the benefit, but tall stubble does allow us to maximize snow catch in our fields.”


^{Emergence four weeks after seeding}

Soil temperatures were initially a concern when Rex first started harvesting with the stripper header last year. Rex decided to work with Ron Heller from Reduced Tillage LINKAGES to measure soil temperatures to see what the differences were.

“We compared a field of short stubble across the road (canola stubble 8-10 inches that had been seeded to peas) to 30 inch tall unseeded wheat stubble on my farm,” says Rex. “The results seem to indicate that the tall stubble can create a micro-climate effect to moderate temperatures for the establishing crop,” Rex concluded.

For more details on this comparison go to: http://www.reducedtillage.ca/article432.aspx

Rex makes plans for spring knowing another year brings its own challenges and opportunities.

“I’m inspired by a quote attributed to John Rockefeller Jr.,” says Rex. “If you want to succeed, you should strike out on new paths rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success.”