in average or light growth, or when rain had fallen on the swaths or 

 windrows, pickup losses were greater by the no -attachment method than 

 by other methods. 



Although swaths or windrows can be picked up in either direction, 

 picking up against the heads of the plants is cleaner and causes less 

 shattering. All mowers and windrowers have their cutterbars on the 

 right side but some combines have their headers on the right and some 

 on the left. In harvesting windrows or swaths with left-handed combines 

 against the heads, it is necessary to harvest from the inside toward the 

 outside of a field, and further necessitates traveling over unharvested seed. 

 Such restrictions contribute to mechanical shatter and cause much trouble 

 and loss of time at the turns, especially in irregular and terraced fields. 



SUCTION SEED RECLAIMERS 



This machine was developed by ARS-State scientists in Oregon, but 

 it can be used anywhere in the United States to innprove seed -harvesting 

 efficiency. Its use has reduced shatter losses in crimson clover and 

 similar crops to about 5 percent and in subclover and similar crops to 

 about 10 percent. Shatter loss for these crops when they are convention- 

 ally harvested usually average about 31 percent and 68 percent, re- 

 spectively. Commercial models of the reclaimer have been developed. 



Several types of suction reclaimers preceded the Oregon model, 

 but none were absolutely satisfactory. They left too much seed on the 

 ground or the seed reclaimed had a low rate of germination. These limita- 

 tions in the Oregon reclaimer have been overcome by agitating the seed 

 while suction is applied and by removing the reclaimed seed from the 

 airflow before they reach and are damaged by the suction fan. 



The reclaimer can be mounted on a trailer that is pulled by a tractor. 

 Its use then is an additional harvesting operation following combining. 

 Mounting the reclaimer on the combine, however, eliminates this extra 

 operation. It also eliminates rehandling the seed because the seed re- 

 covered can be threshed along with the crop being cut. In addition, pre- 

 liminary removal of threshed straw from the field is not necessary since 

 the reclaimer nozzle is located below the combine, behind the cutterbar, 

 and ahead of the straw discharge. The nozzle thus picks up seed from the 

 ground while the material being cut is going through the combine. 



CHEMICAL DEFOLIATION 



The results of many tests in treating grass and small-seeded legume 

 plants with chemicals as an aid to seed harvest reveal that the practice 

 may pay in the West; that it probably will not in the Southeast. 



In California, use of chemical defoliants has apparently caused an in- 

 crease in the direct combining of grass and small legume seed crops since 

 1955. Studies made at the University of California Experiment Station at 

 Davis initially established the feasibility of the practice. 



3 Details of the design and operation of the reclaimer appear in ARS 42-24, "Suction Reclaimer for Shattered 

 Seed," available from the Agricultural Research Service, Uni^dStatesDepartmentof Agriculture, Washington 25, 

 D. C. 



