Harvest is done – the grain is in the bin, the equipment is back at the yard and you’re ready to give you and your employees some much deserved rest and relaxation. But there are a few housekeeping chores that, if done now, will make next season’s harvest start off much smoother.
“A post-harvest walkthrough lets you address any issues while they are fresh,” explains Tim Starowitz, harvesting product specialist with Case IH. “There's no better time to address the problem than when you were experiencing it. If you let the combine sit for two or three months, you might not remember those minor issues that were occurring, so those things can slip through the cracks.”
For instance, let’s say you had an issue with chopper knives hanging up. When the combine is buried in the storage area, you might not take the time to move the chopper knives when doing a visual inspection, so you’re not going to remember that was an issue until next year, when you roll around and you want to reengage the chopper knives, and they're tough to move again.
“Larger issues, like bearings and drive chains, will get attention during an inspection,” Starowitz says. “But it’s easy to miss the little things that were frustrating or made harvest a little bit more stressful.”
“We're all ready to go on vacation post-harvest. But taking that little bit of extra time, whether you're doing it yourself or sending it to the dealer and getting the preventative maintenance inspection done, is important,” he says. This gives you and the dealer the opportunity to handle issues before the pre-harvest crunch next year.
“Another good reason for a preventative maintenance inspection is that it puts a second set of eyes on your equipment,” Starowitz says. “Mechanics at dealerships are working with equipment every day, so they have an intricate knowledge that can catch things that you might overlook. They give you a more detailed walk around. And there’s the option for the dealer to handle the service on larger items or take advantage of your preventative maintenance program to get ready for next season.”
“It’s going to be a lot easier to get your combine ready for next harvest is you keep it clean,” Starowitz says. “The longer debris sits on the combine, the harder it is to clean off. For some producers, this means cleaning the combine off every day. But at the very minimum, clean your combine thoroughly before you put it away.”
Letting debris sit on the combine just isn’t good for the machine. “That’s especially true if debris is sitting on a bearing or hinge, or an area that can harbor moisture and cause rust,” Starowitz says. “Keeping it clean is better for storage and long-term life. And it is easier to work on a clean combine.”
And if you are in the market for a new combine and looking to trade or sell, a clean combine just means more. “Dealers aren’t going to have to spend extra time cleaning the combine if they are taking it on trade, and a clean combine visually represents to the dealer that the equipment has been well cared for,” Starowitz says. “People are going to be a little bit more enticed to purchase it when they think the combine was taken care of.”
You’ve collected a lot of data during the harvest season – informative data that you will use to make 2026 decisions. It’s important before parking the combine to ensure all your data has been collected in one place and is backed up (in duplicate). “FieldOps is a good resource to lean on and ensure your data is there,” Starowitz says. “But it's always a good idea to keep a USB stick in your display, and that way you have a backup. We upload data to the cloud or to OneDrive or whatever platform you want to use. But it's always good to have a secured copy on an external device.”