Stine has developed a unique way to improve seed corn production. Stine’s one-of-a-kind, internally designed and custom-built FieldMax Seed Corn Harvesting System was designed to minimize handling, reduce waste and increase harvest efficiency on the Stine Seed Farm in Adel, Iowa. This innovative system allows Stine to perform in the field many of the tasks that would typically be done in a seed corn production facility. Stine currently possesses four of these corn pickers based on the John Deere 9800-series platform, along with one that is a slightly smaller harvester built on the John Deere 9600-series platform.
So, how does it work? As the seed corn is picked, the ears travel their way up the main belt and come across the splitter belt and then on to one of two husking beds to get the husks removed. From there, the corn then travels to the upper deck to be sorted for purity; anything unhusked will then be sent through a return. Good ears get off-loaded into the white storage boxes pulled alongside. This ultimately reduces grain handling and preserves the grain quality, but the efficiency doesn’t stop there.
After the seed comes off the FieldMax Seed Corn Harvester, it is directly loaded into drying boxes where it will be hauled into drying stations. Each drying station holds four boxes, and all boxes hold 125 bushels of wet ear corn. Every station is anchored by a large fan, which pushes air through the four boxes of corn, taking about two to three days to get a box of corn dry enough to be processed. Stine’s system dries small batches, which allows us to use a relatively high volume of air and low amount of heat. This preserves the grain and yield quality of Stine seed corn after harvest.
Agriculture technology is constantly evolving, and Stine prides itself on leading the industry with innovation such as the Stine FieldMax Seed Corn Harvesting System. Learn more about the system in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iR0axmdNIrs.