Harvesting Sunflower seeds

[blackrams]

My wife and I are both originally from Kansas, the Sunflower State. We both grew up with these plants growing in the wild and saw them in beautiful fields of huge flowers. They were a sight to behold. We both like them so much that every year we will till up some soil and grow some of the multi-color and some of the giant versions. She enjoys the birds the flowers bring to our home and I simply like the look of them. I always harvest the giant flower blooms and dry them for next years crop. They are beautiful and provide critters with food, are scenic and provide a privacy fence of sorts for our back yard.

But, I have often wondered what type of equipment is used by commercial sunflower farms. Some kind of special combine? I have no idea and thought I'd ask.

Rams:drink:

 

[kneedeep]

Just about any general purpose combine header will cut Sunflower but some varieties will shatter at the header and the crop will be lost before it goes through combine. There are Combine Headers designed for crops like Sunflower to reduce header loss.

combining sunflowers - Google Search

 

[D7E]

Sunflower header is a regular straight cut header with long spiked pans added in front to catch fallen seeds . The reel is replaced with a smaller diameter one . Or use an all crop corn type header.

 

[Bird]

I think I was a teenager before I ever heard of anyone planting sunflowers on purpose. I used to have to fight those things in the garden and pasture and couldn't even imagine anyone planting one.

 

[Creamer]

My wife and I are both originally from Kansas, the Sunflower State. We both grew up with these plants growing in the wild and saw them in beautiful fields of huge flowers. They were a sight to behold. We both like them so much that every year we will till up some soil and grow some of the multi-color and some of the giant versions. She enjoys the birds the flowers bring to our home and I simply like the look of them. I always harvest the giant flower blooms and dry them for next years crop. They are beautiful and provide critters with food, are scenic and provide a privacy fence of sorts for our back yard.

But, I have often wondered what type of equipment is used by commercial sunflower farms. Some kind of special combine? I have no idea and thought I'd ask.

Rams:drink:

Food for the critters - are you calling me a critter?

 

[6thgpSF]

They grow them around here to sell as bird food to such stores as T.S.C. etc. I have several species that grow every yr. Beautiful plants...russ

 

[blackrams]

Food for the critters - are you calling me a critter?

Well, if I am, I be one 2.

Most folks have heard of Peanut Brittle, ever had Sunflower Brittle?

Anyone here commercially grow Sunflowers? If you're close enough, I'd love to ride by your field. Harvest time would be an excellent time t watch the process.

Rams. :drink:

 

[Thomas]

Harvesting sunflowers...those darn gray squirrels do pretty good job.

 

[pat32rf]

We buy black oil sunflower seeds for the bird feeders but one bag will be nice and clean, the next will be full of dead leaves and broken stems. What gives?

 

[MHarryE]

We buy black oil sunflower seeds for the bird feeders but one bag will be nice and clean, the next will be full of dead leaves and broken stems. What gives?

Sunflower seeds are relatively light so it can be tough to blow the trash out in the combine without losing a lot of seed. This was a tough harvest year for us so our seed is trashy. Some packagers will bag harvest run while others will secondary clean after drying. We harvested at 13% and dried in the bin to 8% for long their storage. We'd be able to clean them a lot better now running them over a fanning mill. For a packager fanning the seed is more cost and if people will pay for the trash, more profit.