With many farmers still trying to plant and some beginning harvest, the persistent rainfall across much of the U.S. has poised 2019 to be a year with challenging harvest conditions. Ideally, farmers prefer to harvest when the plant is dry; however, this year, that may be wishful thinking. Not only will the grain likely have high moisture, but the plant as well, making it more difficult to thresh out and separate the grain. With inconsistent stands from replanted areas and ponding in fields, farmers will also be faced with mixed maturity levels within each field. Fortunately, KX7 concaves are designed to handle high moisture and varied crop conditions better than other concaves – allowing you to Take Control of Your Harvest!
“KX7 concaves offer a more aggressive threshing action that’s gained from its bars being angled perpendicular to the crop flow,” commented Kondex Senior Application Engineer Andy Theisen. “In addition, they deliver more disruption to interrupt the crop mat and induce more separation.”
This disruption comes from a combination of KX7’s half-width design paired with its individual MaxThreshTM and MaxRoundTM boxes that don’t continuously align with each other. As the crop moves past the concaves, it’s subject to more immediate mechanical threshing, followed by grain-on-grain threshing triggered from this disruption.
“We’re seeing a big improvement in rotor loss with KX7 concaves over traditional and aftermarket concaves,” Theisen noted. “This is the result of KX7’s improved threshing and greater separation, and is especially important in high-moisture conditions. Without the proper threshing, valuable seed has a greater risk of becoming intertwined with the crop mat and carried out the rotor.”
When crop maturity varies, many farmers aren’t sure of the settings to use with their traditional concaves – there’s a fine line between too little threshing that results in rotor loss, just enough threshing, and over threshing at the risk of grain damage. While traditional concaves have little flexibility here, the settings are much broader and more forgiving with KX7.
“With the inconsistent stands from wet conditions this year, there’s comfort in knowing KX7 can still deliver an excellent harvest without sacrificing grain quality or losses – even if the season turns early and our harvest window shrinks,” Theisen continued.
The weather has brought farmers enough risk this year. Don’t let your concaves add more uncertainty to your harvest. Contact us to discuss which KX7 concaves are right for you, or find your recommended KX7 crop customization online.