Crawford County, Robinson, Illinois | I had a 1680 for over ten years, could never understand why anybody would want a straw chopper on the back. Corn, Beans, only a few acres of wheat was my crop. I did have a "Spreader" brand auxillary spreader mounted to the rear axle, it helped spread more evenly behind my 20' head. However, my spreader ran from hydraulics on the reel, and when I changed real speed or used the automatic real control, sometimes the spreader didn't run fast enough and would plug the combine from chaff caught on the slow moving spreader. I finally sold the spreader to a neighbor, getting tired of cleaning out the combine, and I believe he still runs it on his 1680, probably changed the source of hydraulic power. Without the spreader the chaff was a little thicker, making some problems with no-till, but not that bad if you had a good planter. (Think red)
To my knowledge, they make better spreaders now, or at least I have been told. With a wider grain head, I belive some kind of spreader other than original would help a lot if no-tilling, but I still see no need of a chopper, that would take more horsepower from the combine and be another possible source of problems.
My main problem was adjusting the rotors so I could bale wheat straw, setting the rotor close can do a pretty good job of chopping itself. |