Introduction

I am currently a production employee for Remington Seeds at the Hastings, Minnesota location. This is a seed corn production and conditioning facility.

Right now there are four PDF brand detasseling machines being used to detassel corn. These machines are old and worn out. I believe Remington is a far superior seed producer to be using such machines as these.

I am proposing that four new Hagie detasseling machines be purchased for the production line. These machines would be a great benefit which would greatly decrease the amount of time it takes to detassel a field of corn.

The Plan

I would recommend that the four Hagie machines be purchased right away. Since there is no detasseling of corn being done right now, the demand might be low and they will be readily available. For the price of $30,000 each, it is a great investment. The PDF machines were bought new over 30 years ago, and I see no reason why a new Hagie could not last as long. It would be great if the machines could be delivered by early May. If they can be delivered the first week in May, it would give the mechanics enough time to go through the machines to make sure everything is right with them and that they are accurate. This would leave about two months to fix anything that was wrong, and the mechanics could make sure they will be ready for detasseling season.

Current Status

Right now, there are four PDF machines being used. Since these machines are hydraulic driven, they need to have the hydraulic oil in order to operate. Each one of the PDF’s has a 30 gallon tank that supplies hydraulic oil for the machine. I know from personal experience that two of the machines will go through an entire tank of hydraulic oil almost every three days, and I have not seen them last much longer than four days. It varies only slightly with the terrain. The more hills that a field contains, the harder the machines have to work, which makes them use more hydraulic oil. The other two machines leak only slightly less. This leaking is caused from so many gaskets, seals, and hoses on the machines leaking. Of course, these seals and hoses can be fixed and they are fixed every year prior to detasseling season. As soon as these machines get into the field and are operated for only a short amount of time, they begin leak oil from the places that were just tended to. One major component that seems to be a problem on these PDF’s is the hydraulic hubs on each of the tires. Since the machine is hold, so is the hydraulic system is these machines. They need to be tended to all of the time and they are very expensive when one goes out. This maintenance costs a lot of money and would not be necessary to do every year on a new Hagie detasseling machine. If the mechanics at the plant do not have to spend as much time working on detasseling machines, it means they will have more time to work on machines inside the plant that handle the corn after the harvest.

This loss of necessary fluids is extremely inefficient, especially considering the cost of the hydraulic oil. Hydraulic oil costs just around $10 a gallon, and about $14-15 a gallon for premium oil. That means that Remington Seeds is spending over $600 a week on just two machines when they are running, and this is only for hydraulic oil. Motor oil is about $4 a quart, and each machine has needed several quarts of oil each day just to keep them from running low and burning up the motor. This adds up to a lot of money when the detasseling season usually lasts two to three weeks.

The daily cost of keeping these PDF’s running does not end with the cost of the fluids. The mechanics take time out of their busy schedule working back at the shop to come out and fix the machines and fill them with fluids. Of course, things will always go wrong with equipment, but a new machine will have far less problems when it comes to major components.

Benefits

There are many benefits to having Hagie detasseling machines in place of what is currently used. The efficiency only begins with the fact that they would use less hydraulic and motor oil than the worn out PDF’s. The PDF’s are only eight row machines, and the Hagie’s would be twelve row machines. With this wider implement, more acres can be detasseled with a single swath across a field. The Hagies also have automatic sensors which are more accurate and faster than manually moving the detasseling bar up and down when going across the field. The bar needs to be moved up and down because not every field is uniform in height. Some areas of the field have taller corn than others. The detasseling bar is the bar that sits on the front of the machine doing the actual mechanical detasseling of the crop. Using a bar with automatic sensors removes any error that may be made by the operator of the machine. The sensors keep the bar from going too deep and hurting the corn plants. They also keep the bar from detasseling too shallow, which means it is not doing a good job of pulling the tassels. This accuracy allows the machine to only go over a field once to do a sufficient job, compared to the PDF’s that need to go over each field twice. This alone will cut fuel costs in half. Along with this accuracy is the speed of the Hagie’s. This speed is accompanied by four wheel drive, which gives it more traction by minimizing tire slip and decreasing the overall time it takes to finish a field. Since a field can be finished in a shorter amount of time, it will also save on labor costs since Remington hires someone to drive the machines.


All of the money being saved on valuable fluids such as oil and fuel will add up. The bills during detasseling season will not only be decreased because of less oil being wasted, but also because of the fewer parts that will be needed to be purchased. Not only will less money be needed for these components, but there will also be less money spent on seasonal employees. If the length of the detasseling season is shortened, then so will be the amount of days these seasonal employees are hired, which will ultimately save money on labor.

Conclusion

Four new Hagie detasseling machines would greatly save money on the day to day operations out in the field during detasseling season. The money saved on fluids and maintenance alone will be seen right away during detasseling season. This money being saved on fluids, parts, and labor could be used to toward the new Hagie detasseling machines. The benefits of four new Hagie detasseling machines greatly outweigh the cost. These benefits of the new machines will also be seen far into the future.