Redekop seed control unit now available for John Deere X-series combines

Owners and operators of John Deere’s X-Series combine harvesters in Australia can now equip their machines with Redekop’s Seed Control Unit (SCU) for advanced weed control.

The Redekop SCU mounts to the combine chopper and injects processed chaff directly into the residue stream for distribution over the entire cutting width. In doing so, it destroys weed seed, helping to manage weed resistance for the next seasons, John Deere said.

The SCU for X-Series is now available in the country, following three years of testing on X-Series working in Canada, Australia and Germany.

John Deere Production System Manager, Ben Kelly, said all the benefits already enjoyed by customers with SCUs on S-Series Combine Harvesters could now be enjoyed by the owners and operators of X-Series.

“The SCU is already a proven performer on the S-Series and we are excited to have worked collaboratively with the team at Redekop to adapt the technology to be suited to the power and capacity of the bigger machines,” he said.

“This will also open the door to the X9 being an option for more farmers, knowing they can fit this highly effective weed control system, further allowing them to grow the efficiency of their small grain and cereal cropping operations.”

Redekop’s Trevor Thiessen said the trials have shown that the redesigned SCU, which was created in conjunction with John Deere’s design team, could handle the additional volume presented by the X-Series without compromising harvester throughput.

“The X9 has significantly more capacity, including cleaning shoe capacity, than the John Deere S-Series, so we had to make sure that the mills taking the material off the back of the harvester could handle that,” Thiessen explained.

“We tested the SCU in Australia and Canada, but we were most concerned with the amount of straw and material it would encounter in European conditions. Being able to prove the X9 SCU in German wheat crops that were pushing eight to nine tonnes per hectare, and some barley running at 11.5 tonnes per hectare, gave us confidence the unit could perform anywhere.”

Redekop worked closely with John Deere’s engineering departments to fine tune and adapt air flow, shoe pressure, load limits on the drive line and other components in the new iteration of the SCU.

“To ensure the technologies work together, John Deere provided us with a pre-production X9, so we did our fit-up, fabrication and design work with that,” Thiessen said.

“We had drawings for the back end of the combine that we could modify in the CAD system before we tried the physical prototypes, so that made it easier to develop a solution that integrates seamlessly with the X-Series.”

The Redekop SCU, mounted behind the cleaning shoe of the X-Series and fully integrated with the machine, is designed to work in all crop conditions with one set of mills, negating the need to swap mills in response to crop or harvest conditions.

According to Redekop, the reversible mills can destroy up to 98 per cent of harvestable seeds before the material is directed back to the residue stream, mixed with straw and spread evenly over the entire cutting width, to ensure minimal weed pressure and better crop establishment in subsequent seasons.

The SCU is fully integrated with John Deere's G5 Plus CommandCenter and can be easily engaged or disengaged as required.

“The integration with CommandCenter was flawless, there were just some tweaks to the software to make it all work and we have a great relationship with the John Deere engineering departments making it easy,” Thiessen said.

He added in Canadian trials, farmer co-operators were very pleased with the ability of the X9 SCU to handle crops when running side by side with X9s that weren’t fitted with the unit.

Thiessen gave credit to Australian innovators for pioneering the systems that have led to the development of Harvest Weed Seed Control practices of today.

“Australian farmers were some of the first to understand the preventative benefits of this type of weed control and the good news is that others around the world, in the US, South America and Europe, are seeing what they’re doing, so Australia should be proud of that.”