AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE
digest

PURDUE UNIVERSITY
Vol. 7, Nov. - Dec., 1964

CORN HARVEST BOTTLENECKS
Many different bottlenecks increase the amount of time required to harvest corn. Research workers visited 30 Indiana farms and watched individual work elements such as positioning a mounted picker for hitching to an empty wagon.
They found that corn stalk condition affects speed of picking more than yield or machine capacity. Average picking speed was reduced by as much as 50 percent when stalk jams needed to be cleared from the gathering points or snapping rolls.
Combine bin capacities were not large enough to hold corn harvested in one complete round of an 80-rod field. And, it took more time to unload the combine bin than to change trailing wagons behind a mounted picker-sheller.

Side opening hopper wagon boxes saved time and several operations in unloading.
Batch dryer operations were slowed considerably by the filling and unloading time involved. Another time consuming hand operation is leveling bins. No completely satisfactory bin leveling distributor was observed on the thirty farms visited.
Observations reported here were taken from a larger study on the design-and selection of an optimum materials-handling system for a typical 15,000 bushel corn-hog enterprise.
Journal Paper 2266, F. P. Geyer, R. M. Peart and W. H. M. Morris, Agricultural Engineering and Agricultural Economics.

SILAGE AND FEED HANDLING CENTER
A silage-feed center that delivers, weighs and feeds mixed silage and ground feed to four separate lots of cattle has been designed by Purdue agricultural engineers.
In the system, silage comes from two silos. Equipment is housed in a small building between the silos. Standard equipment includes two silo unloaders, a small self-unloading wagon box placed on a small platform scale, a 9-inch inclined silage auger and a 4-inch ground feed auger.

Specially designed equipment includes a silage delivery and leveling auger over the weigh hopper and a reversible section of auger on the intake-end of the bunk feeder.
The reversible auger permits filling either a wagon or the mechanical bunk feeder.
The unloading wagon box is mounted on the scales and receives silage from either silo or from the ground feed bin. It discharges feed into the bunk feeder or the wagon load-out auger.
In this system, feed is layered into the weigh hopper and blended by beaters as the hopper unloads. The system is adaptable to many farm situations.

Journal Paper 2267, B. A. McKenzie and R. M. Peart, Agricultural Engineering.

COST OF FLAME CULTIVATION
Cost of flame cultivation has been computed and reported in chart form. The charts are contained in Research Progress Report 89,

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