Sampler combine from Saskatchewan

I wrote about the MiniBatt hand-held combine in the July-August issue of Grainews.   It saves you the trouble of driving your combine into a field to take a sample for testing. You put MiniBatt in the truck and drive from field to field taking quick samples of standing crop.

After reading the article, Bill Schultz of Lintlaw, Sask., phoned to say that a Saskatchewan company has been making a similar tool for years. Brehon Agrisystems has made its portable combine, called Simpler Sampler, since 1981. Schultz bought a used one at an auction sale 15 years ago for $90. He uses it to sample all his cereal crops.

Simpler Sampler takes swathed crop. If you're straight combining, just cut off a few stems and stick the heads into the mini combine. Brehon has a video on the website so you can see how it works.

As the website says, "Handfuls of crop are fed into the threshing chamber and are simultaneously threshed and cleaned; the clean grain is collected, and the chaff is expelled. The straw is discarded and the process is then repeated. Five to ten minutes are required, depending on conditions, to thresh enough grain for moisture testers. This time is very dependent on the operator, since most of the required time is in obtaining the sample handfuls from the swath, with the actual threshing time minimal."

For more information or to order one, call Brehon's Saskatoon office at 306-933-2655 or email Shane Hiltz. 

Schultz's low-tech canola sampling

Bill Schultz doesn't use his Simpler Sampler for canola, Instead he puts a scoop shovel under the swath and then tramples the swath to release the seeds. "You get a good representative sample," he says, "and you'll be surprised how clean it is." You can't get much more low-tech than that. Thanks for the tip, Bill.

By the way, Bill says it has been too wet to put up hay this year. Sure, they've cut some and baled some in his area, but farmers are seeing bales heat on them because they won't dry out. Grain crops are looking good, but they're late. Sounds typical.