Homemade Swath Roller For Canola

Homemade Swath Roller For Canola SWATHERS Swathers 29-3-42 When you swath canola it's often a good idea to roll it at the same time in order to keep the wind from blowing it away. You can buy commercial swath rollers that push the canola down into the stubble, but I didn't want to spend the money for one so I bought an old roller cone cheap at an auction and adapted it to my Deere 580 24-ft. pull-type swather. I welded a pair of homemade steel brackets about 4 ft. apart on back of the swather frame. The roller hangs from the brackets via two chains, one at each end of the roller. I adjust the chains to control the height of the roller. I used 1 1/2-in. sq. steel to make the uprights for the bracket, and 1-in. sq. steel for the rest of it. My total cost was less than $100. I've also used it on flax and mustard. It works great. My father-in-law Bill Carss used a variation of this idea on his CCIL self-propelled 18-ft. swather. But instead of using a cone-type device, he just used a 4 by 8-ft. sheet of plywood. He bent the plywood into a curve, then bolted one length of angle iron near the back end of the plywood and another toward the front. Chains suspend the plywood from the swather frame. If he wants he can add weight on top of the plywood to push the crop down farther. It was a cheap fix. (John W. Birch, P.O. Box 295, Gainsborough, Sask., Canada S0C 0Z0 ph 306 685-2286)

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