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| A little education... The peas we grow today are not at all like the peas from just 25 years ago. Basically, we have bred as many of the leaves off of them as possible, toughened up the vines, and created a plant that will grow well enough to set good pods yet leave all the vines and some of the leaves in the field without ever going through the harvester. The botanists call these "semi-leafless" peas. The "pod stripping" machines we run today do just that. They comb the vines and strip the pods and some leaves and of course a few vines go up into the machine. That way, the "windrow" is really very light on a dry matter basis and generally is not a problem without a spreader in place. Downtime piles and piles left at unload sites are still a pain, but for the most part the "windrow" is negligible after the sun does its thing. Because the windrow is so low on vine content, it doesn't bale worth a hoot and is not worth the effort. I don't know nearly enuff about the internals of the machine to explain why the headers aren't wider, but pea field yields will range from a few hundred pounds per acre to 8000+ pounds, so a wide machine would be impossible to slow down adequately in better yields. 3000-3800 pounds is a decent crop from what I remember. Still a good figure? fill me in, gentlemen... | |
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Pea Harvest started in Southern MN a Few Pics
