With every variety you take the good with the not so good….in the case of AAC Connery CWRS, it has excellent protein, high-quality retention and grade retention, however, some growers find it harder to thresh. Here are some tips to help you get the most out of your AAC Connery crop.

The ultimate goal is to maintain straw and head integrity until it reaches the threshing components of the combine.

Before you even get in the combine, one tip you may want to consider is to take off the AAC Connery when it is slightly tougher, even just a couple of moisture points. It is tougher to get the kernel out of the head when the crop is drier, and the added moisture makes it easier to maintain stock integrity.

Slow Down… or Maybe Speed Up

If your crop is dry, keep in mind that the goal should be to have the entire plant going into the rotor of the combine, ultimately having the kernel pop out, while leaving the rest of the trash separated, intact.

With today’s more aggressive pre-rotor beaters, you may need to slow down the feeder house slightly to avoid metal on grain threshing. With more material entering the combine rotor intact, the rotor will do the threshing. It is better to have grain on grain threshing – this leads to significantly less breakage.

Getting the Concaves Right

The next step is to set your concaves tight enough to match the amount of material entering but not so tight to over-thresh it. Adding filler plates to your concave allows for more grain material rotation inside the rotor before the grain falls into the chaffer. You want to hold the material in the rotor a little longer.

Set Your Chaffer, Fan and Sieve

Adjust your chaffer to allow free grain and any white caps to pass through. Any grain not passing through the chaffer becomes lost grain. The goal is to have just enough fan speed to push the lighter chaff out but have the heavier grain and white caps pass through to the sieve. Grain will pass through the sieve and into the grain tank while white caps will pass off the back of the sieve, into returns allowing for an opportunity to re-thresh the white cap.

To summarize, here are the tips for threshing AAC Connery or other harder to thresh wheat:

• Get the plant into the rotor cage intact. Feed the rotor with gentle, heads-first material.
• Try to achieve aggressive grain on grain threshing
• Add filler plates in concave to hold the material in the rotor a little longer (regardless the colour of your machine) More rotations add threshing action.
• Set your chaffer and fan so you’re not losing any whitecaps.
• Set bottom sieve so free grain falls through, but any white caps pass off the back and into returns to be re-threshed.
• Trying to limit your returns by fine tuning chaffer, fan and sieve settings.