Clean Your Equipment Between Fields

By: Jodi Henke

Combines are impressive machines. Following harvest of an individual field, as much as 150 pounds of biomaterial is captured, including chaff, grain, and weed seed from escapes that made it through the season. Once the weed seeds go through your machine, you’re unintentionally planting next year’s weed crop.

Angie Johnson is the farm and ranch safety coordinator for North Dakota State University Extension. She says to prevent weed seeds from spreading from field to field, stop what you’re doing after each field has been harvested and take some time to clean off the main areas of your equipment.