← Field crops: grain, maize, pulses and potatoes H14-06 · Module 6 of 7 · Pages: 19 · Worksheets: 5

Harvesting, threshing and cleaning grain

Sickle, scythe, small machine or combine: when to cut, how to tie sheaves and set up stooks, how to thresh, winnow and clean grain on a small field

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Harvesting, threshing and cleaning grain

In short

  • With a sickle or scythe you cut at the dough stage (the grain bends like wax under a fingernail), with a combine at full ripeness (hard grain, 14–16 % moisture).
  • One person cuts roughly 1,000–1,500 m² a day with a sickle, 3,000–5,000 m² with a cradle scythe.
  • Sheaves dry in stooks for 7–14 days, ears together at the top, before threshing.
  • Threshing by hand with a flail: roughly 80–100 kg of grain a day per person; winnowing in the wind is quicker.
  • Dust from grain and straw damages the lungs: for threshing and winnowing wear an FFP2 or FFP3 mask (N95 or better in the US), without exception.

What's inside

Chapters

  1. When to cut
  2. What to cut with: choosing a method
  3. Cutting with a sickle
  4. Cutting with a scythe
  5. Stooks: drying sheaves in the field
  6. Threshing: from sheaf to grain
  7. Threshers and machinery: safety
  8. Winnowing and cleaning grain
  9. Straw, chaff and stubble
  10. Losses and how much grain you really get
  11. Common mistakes
  12. Printable checklist

Worksheets

  • Area and work calculator
  • Harvest plan and field sketch
  • A year of harvest and threshing
  • Harvest and threshing log
  • Harvest and threshing equipment

Fields and checkboxes can be filled in with Adobe Acrobat Reader (desktop and mobile), and the calculator adds up by itself. Filling in may not work in some browsers. A print version comes with the screen PDF.

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