Harvest optimization value for crews who harvest the crops that feed the world –

A harvest story from the field with Mike Van Driesten

“One of the reasons I was able to get through school and university was certainly the motivation I got from watching and reading about the 2000-mile harvest and the hard-working custom cutters/harvesters in the US.” – Marcel Kringe, Founder and CEO, Bushel Plus.

Custom Harvesting is one of the toughest yet most rewarding jobs in the agricultural industry. Imagine driving in a big convoy, taking combines to Texas in April, and then harvesting from May to fall, all the way up to North Dakota and Canada. After that, you take them halfway back south in the US, harvesting the fall crops back north again up to Canada. What an adventure!

At Bushel Plus, being part of this harvest run is even more exciting because our company has been a member of the US Custom Harvesters for a few years now, working hand in hand with some of the custom harvesters around combine optimization.

In June 2024, four members of the Bushel Plus team from Canada and the US spent time in the field with a well-known custom harvester, Mike Van Driesten, owner of Van Driesten Harvesting. Van Driesten was curious about the Bushel Plus MAD Concaves™ performance because he saw the split frame design as a game changer for his operation—the design of changing concave inserts within minutes vs. entire concaves, which take hours. As a Custom Harvester, you face all kinds of crops and conditions in very tight timelines. What Van Driesten learned was that Bushel Plus could offer more value to his operation than just concaves when our team joined his in the field in Oklahoma.

 

But First, Let’s Check Moisture

Firsthand, Van Driesten was able to experience the fast and easy way to collect grain samples in the field with the Bushel Plus MiniCombine™ (the MiniCombine). He quickly realized this handheld machine was going to save him hundreds of crew and combine hours. Instead of taking the big combine to the field down the road to harvest a test strip to see if the field is ready to harvest after rainfall or at the next customer, he or any member of his crew can now get around quickly with the battery-operated MiniCombine and take samples in minutes. The grain sample can be put in a moisture meter and the results are immediately visible. Jeremy Pankonin, Product Specialist at Bushel Plus, gave him the rundown on the product and immediately you could see the gears turning as the faces lit up of everyone listening. Combine hours are in the few hundred dollars these days and the depreciation and fuel savings alone will easily pay for the MiniCombine.

Hear it for yourself from Mike Van Driesten:

Little did the team know that the weather made all these examples a real-life scenario. After a couple of days of rain and high humidity, the MiniCombine came to good use, helping him and his crew find the first field that was ready to harvest.

 

Proven Results with MAD Concaves

Van Driesten runs a fleet of JD S-Series combines. Two out of four combines were equipped with Bushel Plus MAD Concaves™  for cereals. The split frame design in the first and second position makes it easy to switch between crops and conditions, because each split frame holds two concave inserts which can be changed by one person within minutes.

In Oklahoma, the crew was harvesting a 55 bu/ac wheat crop. When you see other concave manufacturers advertise about their benefits, you will read about lower losses and more capacity. At Bushel Plus, we take pride in knowing we have an accurate tool in the SmartPan System™ that can verify performance and measure grain loss in the field. In this case, multiple machines were in the same field, and Van Driesten could compare them side by side himself.

The results proved past testing and testimonials of the MAD Concaves. The grain gets threshed faster out of the heads, and the crop material gets threshed only as much as needed, which keeps the straw longer in the process. This leads to better grain separation in the rotor and the cleaning area, which allows more capacity and a cleaner grain sample. Having better grain separation translates into less grain loss, which was measured with drop pan tests in the field using the Bushel Plus SmartPan System™.

 

 

Important Notes Regarding These Test Results

The combine speeds were increased to their maximum potential without sacrificing harvest loss in each combine treatment. Put another way, if the combines were to go any faster, grain loss increased, and sample quality decreased. We would put too much crop material on the concaves, thus causing inadequate separation of chaff and grain and increased losses. MADs have more open concaves. Because the MAD concaves are more open and allow more separation, the operator can go faster without sacrificing harvest loss. In this demonstration, if the combines not equipped with MAD Concaves were to go faster (let’s say equal to the MAD Concaves at 3.5 mph), we would see even more harvest loss in the other treatments.

The harvest loss presented in the data was the lowest harvest loss achievable in this wheat crop, in these conditions. Combine settings were relatively the same across all treatments.

 

Harvest Optimization for your Operation

Van Driesten was impressed with the professional team of Bushel Plus, who was there to provide a quality experience for him and his crew. It wasn’t about selling him something; it was about finding a solution that works for his crew and business. Adding value is the motto for the team at Bushel Plus, and having a Custom Harvester who can now harvest more acres per hour and get more grain in the bin is a huge benefit to their operation.

In conclusion, our time with Van Driesten Harvesting in the field showed that Bushel Plus’s products help to identify grain loss and combine capacity, while managing the output by discovering what works best and supplying better concaves for all threshing conditions.

 

 

Continuing the Journey North

Van Driesten Harvesting has combined multiple different crops in several different states now. They are using our drop pan system to verify losses and calibrate their combines daily. They have losses down to .3 bu/ac in barley with huge capacity as an example, and he loves the fact he can change concaves in minutes. They have had to switch crops mid-day several times and love that it is quick and easy whereas before they would not have stopped to do it.

We will follow Van Driesten on his harvest run through the US this year, meeting him back in Oklahoma in September with the O-Grates in corn.