Harvester Clinics: How We Cover More Locations, More Crops and More Customers

Big turnout for
Harvester Clinics

With COVID forcing our 2021 Harvester Clinics online, this year our in-person clinics were back, bigger than ever with more locations, more crops and more customers in the mix.

Taking the time to set up before harvest is always time well spent, and our yearly Harvester Clinics are the perfect way for our customers to get to know their harvester and its capabilities inside and out. This year’s clinics had an expanded footprint, with six events in total, kicking off in Gunnedah in the north of NSW and making their way down to Finley in the south.

For TECsight Field Specialist Manager Glen Montgomery, the Harvester Clinics are a great way of getting out in front of customers new and ‘old’ to help them improve their harvest efficiency.

“In previous years, we’ve run the clinics for new customers so they can get to know their machines. But because technology is moving pretty quickly, this year we threw it open to all customers so we had some big numbers and covered different crops and a range of newer machines. “Crops included wheat, barley and canola which are the predominant crops down south, but because we kicked off in Gunnedah this year, we covered off on sorghum, faba beans and soybeans. I reckon we learned as much from our newest customers in the north as they did from us. “We had about 320 customers in total across the Gunnedah, Dubbo, Forbes, Temora, Finley and Henty events.”

To cover as much ground as possible, each clinic had four stations for customers to rotate through. These stations were:

• Machine walkaround – covering the maintenance and adjustments needed on S700 Series machines and a variety of platforms, including draper and canola pickup platforms. For the first time, the X9 was included as part of the clinics at the Henty event.
• Gen 4 Command Centre – this involved the display being brought down to ground level so people could interact with the display and see how it is setup for different crop types and platforms, and using technology like Harvest Smart™ and Auto Maintain and Machine Sync which allows the header to communicate with the chaser bin.
• Machine calibrations and optimisations – learning how to optimise both harvesters and platforms for different crops to ensure they work well once the machine hits the paddock; discussing different performance attachments like concave, separator grates etc.
• Precision Ag – running through data management, including best practice monitoring and data collection, how to edit and post calibrate data and what to do with that data in John Deere Operations Center for better decision-making on–farm.

Feedback from the clinics was positive, with many customers saying they liked the interaction and fast pace. And the team was happy with the participants’ willingness to get involved and share their knowledge.

“When we got into concave and crop settings, there was a lot of discussions which was good. We put a few concaves up on the table and spoke about which one’s best for which crop and it was a bit like a show and tell all of a sudden as people from the crowd started talking about what they do and what they’ve found works on their property.

“It wasn’t just us instructing. The customers really shared their own experiences. Some blokes are getting really good results with the changes they’ve made and that’s encouraging for those who tend to stick to their same setup every year. It used to be pretty basic what you could do, but there are a lot of performance attachments we can put into machines now, so we talked about those and the changes customers can make.

“By sharing, we picked up a fair bit from customers about the performance they’re getting out of the machines and we’ll feed those ideas into future clinics. I know a lot of people got a bit out the Precision Ag side of it, too. Some people are probably a bit nervous with that, so the clinic gives them a chance to talk to someone and find out where to start on that journey.”

TIPS FOR HARVEST

As part of the team responsible for optimising all new machines bought from Hutcheon & Pearce, Glen has some advice for customers this harvest. “With the wet season, my advice is all about being prepared with parts. With the pressure machines will be under, we’re probably going to smoke a lot of belts and slip clutches, so make sure you’ve got those parts on hand to keep yourself going.

“There’s no doubt it’s going to be really tough this year, so be patient. Try and set the machines up properly and take your time. As much as the window is going to be short this year, the harder you go, the more chance you have of breaking down and blocking the machines up. And we all know that if you block a harvester up, you can spend five hours unblocking it. So, slow down a little bit and have everything adjusted and you’ll keep on rocking.”

Throughout harvest, our team is ready to assist. For basic setup or GPS enquiries, call TECSight on 02 5924 5111. For parts enquiries or for in the event of a breakdown, call your nearest branch.