Farms & Farm Machinery #389

HARVESTERS
record yield
The world record holder for
the highest average wheat
yield puts his success
down to clever practices
and smart machines
Above: Eric Watson with his Case IH
Axial-Flow 250 Series combine used in
the record-breaking yield, and at the
controls of the combine
2020 has been a defining year so far – and there’s no
exception in the world of wheat growing, with New Zealand
farmer Eric Watson breaking his own Guinness World Record in
February.
Based in Wakanui, in Canterbury in New Zealand’s South Island,
Watson achieved the world’s highest average wheat yield, of
17.398 tonnes per hectare, harvested from 8.6353 ha at Paddock
15a on his farm.
Working with his wife Maxine, he set the previous record of
16.791 tonnes with feed wheat in 2017 on the same paddock.
Irrigated wheat yields in New Zealand average about 12 tonnes
per hectare.
Watson says part of the reason for his success was a series
of productivity gains across multiple facets of his business,
particularly through using tractor and combine harvest
technology.
He harvested the crop using a Case IH Axial-Flow 250 Series
combine harvester, complete with the Case IH AFS Harvest
Command software system, which uses sensors and optimised
harvester settings to conserve grain and improve its quality.
Sensors monitor air pressure on the sieves, warning
of impending losses and allowing the combine to make
adjustments before any grain is lost.
“That new automation; it’s quicker than the human,” he says.
“We always think we can beat computers, but you can’t beat
that. The Harvest Command system knows what to do before
you even see it on the screen.”
Like many arable farmers, Watson says he uses tracked
equipment to maintain soil quality.
“I’ve stuck with tracks for years and I wouldn’t go away from
them for cultivation because you get less compaction and you
also get less slip,” he says.
“With the Case IH Quadtrac you might run at 1 per cent but
most of the time you’re running at zero. If you’re running a
wheeled tractor at 10 per cent, if you’ve run 10 hours then
you’ve lost an hour. And you’re also damaging soil structure by
smearing it a bit.”
Plus, Watson says: “If you’re using 80 litres of fuel an hour
and you have to cultivate for an extra hour, well, that’s a lot of
money.”
This, plus other features including the Axial Flow mechanism
in the harvester that reduces grain damage, goes a long way to
ensuring impressive yields.
Watson says he approached the 2020 Guinness record attempt
in much the same fashion as his successful 2017 bid, albeit
with a few key changes – born from working with Bayer’s New
Zealand Crop Science team.
To break the record, Watson switched wheat variety to feed
grain Kerrin, bred by KWS, and used herbicides and fungicides
from Bayer, as well as taking their agronomy advice.
He also moved from solid urea to liquid, in order to improve
spreading.
“That played a big part as well, especially to get that extra
600kg a hectare,” he says.
“When you’re getting up to those high yield figures it’s hard to
get a big figure like that.”
Left: The CropScan sample head is
mounted onto the clean grain elevator
on a Case IH combine harvester
cropscan
secures
supply deal
Australian-made grain
analyser provided direct from
Case IH and New Holland
dealers to customers under
a new supply deal. Andrew
Hobbs reports
Australia’s Next Instruments will be able to supply its
CropScan 3300H on-combine grain analyser direct to Case
IH and New Holland customers after signing a supply deal with
CNH Industrial.
Under the new arrangement, dealers can arrange for Next to
supply its CropScan 3300H to customers directly from its Sydney
Factory.
Case and New Holland dealers will also be able to access Next
Instruments’ sales, technical and service support team directly,
which Next says will ensure faster and better support for dealers
and their customers.
The deal follows an initial supply arrangement signed in 2016
for the previous model, the 3000H, where Next supplied the
analyser directly to CNHi for the company to install.
Awarded Ag Innovation of the Year at the 2015 Wimmera Field
Days, the system measures protein and moisture in wheat and
barley; and oil, protein and moisture in canola.
Next Instruments chief executive Phil Clancy says early signs
from dealers are promising, and the company has built up
inventory stocks in anticipation of higher demand.
Launched for harvest last year, the new CropScan 3300H has
a number of added features, including a new sample head that
increases the grain flow rate and reduces scan time to 5–10
seconds per measurement.
The other improvements are a lighter tablet PC controller,
better weigh scale communications and a cloud account and
portal for the uploading of data mapped by the analyser.
Retrofittable and used on all major harvester brands, the
analyser affixes to a harvester’s clean grain elevator, taking
samples and analysing them every time the sampling head
is full.
“That then gets presented to the grower on the screen and it
gives him a moving average, then he can choose a number of
different displays to have a real time field map,” Clancy says.
Next Instruments is also working on new ways to help farmers
use the data, through a new entity called CropScan Ag Solutions.
“It is quite complex to use the software to develop all the field
maps, so in some cases it has not gone any further,” he says.
“So we are developing a system where we take the data, put
it into the cloud, convert it to field maps and then post that
directly to the farmer and their agronomist.”
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