Combining dry flax

[newguy]

A while back I posted should I swath or leave flax standing. Everyone that answered said leave standing we have all November. I left it standing but did not believe I would be combining it till spring. Today I was cutting flax that tested 8.1 moisture. Thanks for convincing me not to jump the gun and swath... South of Regina 65 miles..

[bucket]

If you would have swathed it would be tough and sprouted.

[rodweeder]

Swathed flax south of the QuAppelle Valley finally 13.8% by five pm. And yes, will never ever swath flax again!!
It was 15.5% at one pm, perfect sun and wind today. Now give everyone a couple weeks to get wrapped up..

[SASKFARMER3]

Standing HRS 15.6 at midnight swath untestable yesterday. Oats standing sort of 15 swath untestable. Now the wet snow we had did lodge the HRS and oats we are using plastic flex fingers best buy in a long time. Flax was 11 standing. Good luck wraping it up HRS done now the rest.

[grrrr]

Standing flax 10.8 north east of Humboldt yesterday. Finished at 10:03 last night. An old guy once told my neighbor that the hardest thing to do in farming is wait. My last 3 days of harvest were September 29, October 16 and November 6.

[may-be]

Saskfarmer. I was woundering what were the benifits of the plastic flex fingers you experianced?

[boarderbloke]

what are plastic flex fingers?? are they lifters of some sort?

will start on my last field today. It's standing flax and hope it tests dry too.

anyone have parts of the ball sticking to the flax seed? is it a grading factor?

[SASKFARMER3]

Their a crop lifter we bought to replace the honeybe lifters. No damage when break. Lift flat HRS and oats. On oats piss on quaker you don't want to pay for it I am not harvesting it.

[TOM4CWB]

SF3,

We too have tried the plastic fingers... and they are sure better than nothing... and do protect a rotory combine to a large extent. Fiberglass auger fingers are also a big help on flex headers... seldom break and work well in our experience especially on full auger flex fingers doing Peas, Beans, and Canola. The new d****rs are getting better, but in Canola you can not beat a flex header.

80ac flax left... surprisingly good yield (25-30ish)... 12% moisture average so far... maybe dry when I finish today? Will be interesting to see how much is lost to shrink as it drys down!