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Rolla, ND | The traditional reason is that the crop matures unevenly so the swathing catches everything up.
It is common now on wheat to use preharvest Roundup and straight cut. Or on hot years the wheat matures rapidly enough to straight cut anyway. Swathing at the correct stage reduces the chances of shatter losses but of course there is the increased chance of sprouting. Most spring wheats have a fair amount of preharvest dormancy to help stop sprouting. Winter wheats don't since that would affect the use as seed the same fall as harvest.
Barley is bred intentionally to shatter. That makes it combine easily so it is not skinned. It is done for the brewers. Since our feed barleys are malting barleys that didn't pass the taste tests, there isn't a good 6 row feed barley that doesn't shatter available to take straight. Leaving the barley to stand until dry enough to take straight opens you to the risk of severe losses if a wind storm comes through. Heads can just explode. Same thing can happen if you wait too long to swath or if the reel of the swather is too fast. Trend is towards more straight cutting.
Canola will shatter. A good crop all tied together sometimes is straight cut. Leaving a thin crop to straight cut can result in no crop at all. There has been some pushing of canola to make a tight mat and letting it mature standing. Cost of pusher and that it doesn't always work well has limited that practice.
Flax can drop balls due to disease or insects. Most common now to spray preharvest Roundup and straight cut. It combines easier that way.
Peas are swathed if the guy doesn't have a way to straight cut. Big danger in swathing peas is wind rolling swaths. Most are sprayed and straight cut.
Oats are also swathed to avoid shatter losses.
Swathing worked very well during the period when we tended towards relatively dry harvests. Decade of 90's saw a big drop in swathing in this area. Barley, oats, and canola typically still swathed, but most try to straight cut wheat, flax, and peas.
Marv
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Swathing before harvesting??
