Near Intersection of I-35 & I-90 Southern Mn. | There are lots of ways to fool a yield monitor but then you are only fooling yourself.
Had an interesting case several years ago somewhat locally. An operation custom combined corn and custom dried it with their own drying setup, where after they comingled it with corn from others. The yield monitor was used as the sole determination of how much each of the crop owners actually received when the grain was hauled out.
One of the crop owners became suspicious and did some investigating of the yield monitor. The crop owners were in the fertilizer and spray business. The sprayed their own crops as well as custom sprayed. They were disappointed that their yields didn't seem to match neighboring farms. I believe they sent the data into Ag Leader where it was determined that the head was setup as a 9 row head when in fact it was only 8.
This was in the early days of yield monitoring and no mapping was being done. The operator would start harvesting with the combine set at 9 rows rather than 8. The yield/acre shown was reduced since the acres were accumulating more quickly then they should. When the total acres reached the true field size, the yield monitor was shut off and the rest of the field was harvested. When finished, the total for the acres for this field appeared to be correct. The total bushels for that field were incorrect as the monitor was shutoff for the remainder of the field. Thus the owner's share was reduced.
The custom operator would use the yield report to determine the bushels that the crop owner should get. I don't know what the final outcome of this situation was but the customer operator had/has been involved in other shady deals.
Edited by tedbear 9/10/2011 09:04
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Can you fool a yield monitor?
