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| Hello, I'm a long-time lurker and now first-time poster to this great forum. We dairy in Southwest Virginia, just east of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and do most of our own field work, including chopping our own silage. In the summer of 2018 we upgraded from a 122 PTO hp John Deere 6150M hooked to a 20-year-old New Holland FP230 with 2 row head and without a processor to a used 2014 New Holland T8.390 (290 rated/330 max boosted PTO hp) and brand new FP240 chopper with processor paired with a new Dion F61 4-row rotary head. Locals in beef and dairy and other folks with an interest in forage harvesting often ask about the rotary corn head specifically; it has that undeniable "wow factor" and gets everyone excited. Old retired farmers came and watched. Young farmers brought their boys and girls to watch. My 80+ yr-old retired dairyman grandpa even had to come ride a little. Having run the rig for two seasons, I thought I'd share my thoughts on the rotary heads, and hopefully answer any questions anyone might have. (Unfortunately, it's going to end on a rather sour note...)
First, a little background. We started dairying on wide 40" rows. We co-owned a 38" no-till Deere planter with the neighbors, who chopped our silage for many years. Finally we got our own planter in 2012: a twin-row 36" no-till Monosem. (I wanted to go to 30" rows, but dad was determined to try wide twins.) From 2012-14 local custom operators chopped our silage (Deere and Claas) but we grew tired of seeing corn dry up while waiting on them to arrive, and started doing our own in 2015 using the FP230 we bought off the aforementioned neighbors, who had just retired. It was fun, despite several breakdowns. The 824 2 row head was a disaster (it needed major maintenance) and we lost a full day on downtime. The weather was perfect and we finished up without too much trouble. But it just took too long, and I knew a weather interruption (rain) would be disaster if it ever happened due to corn drydown. I wanted more capacity, specifically 3 rows and at least double the power. Unfortunately no 3 row wide head exists, and the twin row spacing means that 3 rows span exactly 80 inches. Enter the rotary head.
Horning (in Pennsylvania) makes a single-drum 2R rotary and a 2-drum 3R, but their 3R is just barely wide enough to cut our 3 wide twins, to the point it would require the entire cutting width of the head, and looked like it would be very stressful to try to accomplish all day for several days. Dion (in Canada) offers 2, 3, and 4R rotaries with 2 drums on all 3 sizes. Their 3R is supposedly wide enough to cut 3 wide twins (90" listed width, including the snouts), but again it would take the entire cutting width, and spanning planter passes would be impossible if the spacing between passes was ever wide. That left one option: the 4R F61. It's listed as a 120" head, but this is hogwash; the owner's manual says it's 117" wide outside, and we measured a 113" working width inside the snouts. Three twin 36" rows, no problem! Four 36" single rows, kinda tight, but certainly possible. And of course it does 4 30s with ease. So I bought the head and adapter kit for a little less than $25k from a dealer in Wisconsin.
Mounting the head the first time was no fun, but the single lift point over the throat area does balance the head pretty well and it wasn't too hard to handle. It weighs about 2550 lbs with the FP240-spec adapter and requires an external flotation spring which hooks to the chopper axle on the cutterhead side of the machine. The tandem axle had to be extended out to mount the spring bracket, and the spring blocked the small swing-out shield by the feedfolls, so we removed the shield. The feedroll crop guides on the head fit up nice and snug, and the head is powered NH-style with a small PTO shaft. So far so good.
We hooked everything to the tractor and ran the chopper and head briefly per the instructions in the manual, adjusted the tension on the 2 gathering chains (one chain drives each drum and feeds the crop into the chopper, while the cutoff knives under the drums are belt-driven and spin the other way; Horning's are gearbox-driven with knives and drums both turning in, together) and after checking both the chopper and head over, we were ready to roll. It did take me a few days to adjust to the immense size of the T8.390, but after a while it "shrunk up on me!"
First impression: WHOA!! The Dion head will eat corn at whatever speed you want to run, up to at least 6.5 mph (the fastest I ever got to in some stressed conditions.) Under most conditions we ran 4.5-5.5 mph and it feeds very aggressively. In 2 years I have never, ever plugged the head. (Our old 2 row would plug up several times a day at 2-3 mph.) The T8.390 performed as expected, never really lugging hard unless I pushed it well into the boost while pulling hills. Where the 6150M Deere would pull down really hard in tall corn or on hills while cutting 2 rows, we were cruising through 3, and burning much less fuel in the process. I was amazed. The head did better than I expected, the chopper handled the weight very well, and it rode really nice on our bumpy no-till ground with all 4 flotation springs wound up tight.
So let's quickly run through the pros and cons of the Dion F61.
PROS:
* Row independent capability (of course, although I still prefer following rows as much as possible, because it does cut cleaner that way)
* Extremely aggressive feeding of crop
* Main adjustments are all fairly simple and it hooks up easily once you know what you're doing
* Much less operator fatigue for me, because I can wander around a little, whereas the 2R head required precise following of rows at all times
* Exceptional ground clearance compared to our old 2R head, even offering high-chop capability (approx 18" max cut height)
CONS:
* It's VERY wide for transport, although I did get used to it after a while
* It's big, heavy, and expensive, but these are relative to the size of any head; however it's roughly twice the cost of a NH 3RN head
* The outside snout tends to lay corn over if you turn into a row at a sharp angle on headlands
* In green corn, the outside snout will knock down a few stalks when cutting across rows, especially when jumping rows gradually at a shallow angle (but it cuts extremely clean crossing rows in dryer corn)
* It WILL NOT feed down corn or sorghum if it is laid down perpendicular to the row or facing back into the head; however it feeds beautifully when down material is parallel to the row and facing forward (in the direction of travel). Anything that won't feed just accumulates on the snouts, which is part of the reason why I have never plugged the head.
* Unlike the Horning heads, it WILL NOT direct cut barley or other grains in soft dough (I tried, and it cut clean for about 100 ft before wrapping up solid around the cutoff knives, slipped the belts, and stopped feeding. And then I busted some knuckles for about 20 minutes unwrapping the cutoff knives.)
* And finally, the Big One. Pay attention to this one. If you only remember one thing, remember this: FROM A CHOP QUALITY POINT OF VIEW, THE DION ROTARY HEAD IS A FLAWED DESIGN. All conventional row-dependent heads feed the rows in separately, spread across the width of the feed rolls, shearbar, and cutter head. This results in straight-through, even feeding and even wear of the chopper components. The Dion and Horning heads cluster a bunch of rows together and feed them into the rolls in a giant mass at one spot, centered or slightly off-center in the case of the F61. Unlike self-propelleds, pull-type chopper feedrolls do not have spiral teeth for lateral distribution of crop, so the corn enters the cutterhead in a big cluster straight behind the gathering chains, causing high wear to both the shearbar and knives across an 8-10" wide area, with very little wear anywhere else. With half the knives removed for processing we had severe shearbar and knife wear in that one small area, no matter how much we sharpened and adjusted. Plus, the mass of corn entering the center of the rolls starts spreading sideways on it's own before reaching the cutterhead, with some stalks going through sideways and coming out as 4-8" long slivers and chunks, which is just ridiculous. Again, no amount of knife sharpening and shearbar adjusting can or will correct this. With all 12 knives in place it cuts much, much cleaner (they all do) but we still had some long slivers that obviously went through sideways, which shouldn't happen with a 3RN row-dependent head. Basically, the rotary heads need to feed the crop in at 2 places, rather than one, which would distribute the crop much better, cause much more even wear, and provide much better chop quality.
And that about covers it. Now for the Big Question: Would I buy another of these heads?
Probably not. I'd try hard to get dad to switch to 30" rows, and run a standard New Holland 3RN, which will cut reasonably well across rows due to its wide-open front end design. And with the money I'd save, I'd buy a spare! Or considering the shape the dairy industry is in, maybe I'd buy nothing -- tractor, chopper, head, none of it -- and "get a real job."
I apologize for such a long post. Thanks for your attention, and have a good day. | |
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Pros and Cons of Dion rotary corn heads on pull-type choppers
