gleaner EIII in Alaska

How did it work out?

Bill - sorry haven't had a chance to synch up with you on the phone...my schedule has been unbelievably crazy and I was busy at the farm all weekend.  I need to load one or two of the other photos you sent.  The one with mountains in the background is fantastic.  I'm glad you got the EIII working as good as you did.  You had lots to go through on the old girl to get her field ready.  Too bad the lodging is causing you such a problem.  I hope you still get some good weather so you can get some more of it out.  Mike

Here's the pics Bill posted on YT:

that stem is makeing it wet, pick the head up

Here's 2 more pics from Bill including the one with the mountains in the background.

FYI - According to Bill, the straw is worth more up in Alaska than the oats are worth - that's why he's trying to run as much straw through the combine as possible so he can bale it afterwards without having to mess with trying to mow it too.  Mike






Edited by Skyhighballoon(MO) - 04 Oct 2011 at 8:23pm

The original version of that very simple and easy to make at home rod iron was welded to a flat strap iron bolted to the guards. the rod iron projected out in front of the knife with a six inch rise over the knife sections no springs etc 

I realize you are loosing daylight quickly up there but since you still haven't had a hard freeze, it's going to be hard to run it.  Hopefully you will get a freeze without snow.  Keep us posted.  BTW what does a bale of straw sell for there?

your right but we just can't seem to get that killing frost.  Some years we get it in late aug but may years its Sep this year it's oct and still no killing frost.  we had frost just not cold.  in  week we normally have sticking snow so I'm sort of in  a rush to beat that sticking snow.  Dog mushers  are ringing my phone off the hook.  

I notice Fairbanks didn't get a hard frost until Sept 28th, the new banana belt!

no I never did get it all.  I thought I sent an up date so I could let everyone who was fallowing would know.  But i must of posted it somewhere else.  Any way I did end up with about 500 bales of straw that I sold too wet to store or use in the woods. because it will freeze solid and cant be shaken out. It's possible some of it was good and the dog musher's hand pick through it and took their chances because you cant find straw like mine up here.  It sort of surprised me how loyal some of my customers were.  Some really wet ones I sold at half price for immediate use. We have had some below 0 temps and about a 8 inches of snow.  right before the snow I turned my mower into a rototiller (joke) and try to cut as much as I could.  I know a man with cows and a round baler so after I raked and cut it about 3 times he rolled it up and got about 60 round bales to feed his cows.  by the time that got done  the ground was frozen solid and I couldn't disk it.  So the land lord isn't happy a lot of straw still in the field and not disked. The round bales where so heavy he broke his wagon trying to move them but they where full of oats.  His cows loved it. i did end up with about 20 ton of oats in the bin so it wasn't a total loss.  Had I got all the oats I would of run out of space to but them.  Next year I have a new variety to try (Ceal) next to the Toral oats and will only water to get it started and hope we don't have rainy year. Ceal oats is a short var. and Toral is is a med/long straw but has very good lodging resistance. (the say)  I'm hoping the water trick will shorten them up to say 3 to 4 ft becasue I don't know how long the Ceal will get but I need the tall straw if I can get it.  Thats the product not the oats.   I'll have to clean it up in the spring. For us thats the first of May to the middle of May in some fields.