Source: Alberta Canola Producers Commission

Canola growers often lose 2 bushels an acre out the back of the combine, and losses can easily reach 5 bushels per acre if the combine is pushed beyond its threshing capacity.

Every combine will have a sweet spot where the settings and ground speed are just right for the conditions and losses are within the acceptable range of 0.5-1 bushel an acre.

The only way to find that sweet spot is to first set the combine concave spacing, cylinder/rotor speed, fan speed, and sieve and chaffer spacing to match the canola harvesting conditions, then use a drop pan to measure the losses for these settings.

If losses are too high for your liking, adjust these settings or reduce ground speed until losses are acceptable. Use the links below to find more on measuring losses.

Combine-loss.png