Built to catch what others leave behind, Drago heads help prevent yield loss and volunteer headaches.
Volunteer corn is an unwelcome reminder of corn yield loss in the previous year’s crop. What was once potential income turns into a weed that, if it isn’t managed, can have detrimental effects on the current crop and even crops yet to be planted.
According to the University of Nebraska, volunteer corn can have serious repercussions on yield and pest management. If not controlled early, it competes with the current year’s crop for sunlight, nutrients and moisture and helps sustain rootworm populations. It can also serve as a vector to maintain corn disease pressure for the following year’s crop in corn-soybean rotations. Regardless of whether it’s in corn-corn or corn-soybean rotations, volunteer corn is a weed that needs to be controlled to limit its impact on yield. Focusing on a more efficient corn harvest is one way to reduce volunteer corn’s impact the following year.
Capturing more corn yield
According to Dustin Bollig, farmer and Dragotec vice president of sales and marketing, volunteer corn may be unavoidable in some years. However, it can be significantly reduced by ensuring your combine is maximizing harvestable corn yield capture.
“Corn producers should take steps to ensure their combine is running efficiently, but they should prioritize their corn head when looking to reduce harvest losses,” he says. “With 60% of corn yield losses coming out of the front of the combine, some corn heads can act like sowing machines for volunteer corn. Yield losses from ear bounce, butt shelling and small ear loss through misadjusted deck plates not only impact the bottom-line during harvest but will have repercussions in the form of volunteer corn in the following year’s crop.”
Drago corn heads are engineered for a single purpose: capturing more harvestable corn yield. Their Kernel Capture technology limits the ear and kernel loss that result in volunteer corn. Drago’s exclusive automatic self-adjusting deck plates minimize plate gaps in each row, and their knife rollers rotate more slowly and catch and release stalks as they are processed, so ears are removed further back in the head. The Drago GT also comes equipped with QuadSuspension™ deck plate shocks that absorb the impact of ears hitting the plates to limit ear bounce and butt shelling.
“Farmers who are not operating a Drago corn head are using 40-year-old technology,” Bollig says. “Other heads were designed when plant populations were lower and equipment was smaller, which helped to limit some head loss. Today that is no longer the case. Higher populations, higher yields and larger equipment are leading to greater corn yield loss on heads with hydraulic deck plates.”
Hydraulically operated deck plates were first introduced in the 1980s. The antiquated technology requires the operator to guess the deck plate gap setting from the cab. When adjusted, plate gaps are the same across the entire width of the corn head — a problem that today’s larger corn heads exacerbate.
Drago harvest research has demonstrated that stalk width is extremely variable within and across rows. That variance increases in higher-yielding corn, creating significant opportunities for kernel and small ear loss for operators with hydraulic deck plates.
“Our research has demonstrated stalk widths can vary by ¼ inch or more 40% of the time from row to row when corn yields are greater than 200 bushels/acre,” Bollig says. “When you consider Iowa State University’s data highlighting as little as a 1/8-inch gap between the stalk and deck plate can lead to a one-to-four-bushel yield loss per acre, there is a significant opportunity for yield loss—and future volunteer corn—in higher-yielding fields.
“With Drago deck plates, there’s no guessing required on where and when to adjust them. They do it for you.”
Down corn
Most corn growers accept the fact that when they have down corn, they will experience more volunteer issues the following year. Bollig points out that even in down and lodged corn, the problem can be mitigated with a Drago.
Drago corn heads include exclusive features that Drago owners have found can help reduce losses in down and lodged corn. Aggressive, overlapping gathering chains are placed further out front to capture stalks to pull them into the head. Plus, the lowest header profile in the industry – at 17-23 degrees – enables the head to slip under stalks and catch dropping ears with less loss out the front. Drago also offers optional down corn augers to help center stalks over the row and limit loss of ears hanging over the header sides.
“Losing harvestable yield in standing and down corn is bad enough,” Bollig says. “But, having to deal with the aftermath of volunteer corn the following season is even more reason to own a Drago and harvest like you mean it.”