WHAT do you do when your grain paddock is laid out in hundreds of tiny plots that measure just 5m by 1m?
You call in a Wintersteiger harvester.
The Department of Primary Industries, Horsham, owns a Wintersteiger - basically a scaled-down version of bigger, broadacre harvesters.
And don't let its compact size fool you.
The Wintersteiger has many of the bells and whistles you would see on larger gear such as a hydrostatic drive and interchangeable harvesting fronts.
Powered by a 62kW water-cooled Perkins diesel engine, the Wintersteiger is just what is required for harvesting trial plots, according to the DPI Horsham's Bruce Holding.
"It's obviously not designed for harvesting thousands of acres at a time," Bruce said.
"But it's great for the trial plots which we use for research purposes.
The plots are 5m by 1m in size and the Wintersteiger is made specifically for them.
"It's very comfortable and capable and we can control all the harvester's functions from in the cabin."
The custom-made mini harvester can comfortably accommodate two people in its cabin.
The driver faces forward and the passenger rearward to keep an eye on the grain as it is harvested and automatically placed into sample bags, which have a capacity of about five litres.
"It has a grain tank like a conventional harvester but we can also divert the grain flow at the flick of a switch which lets us take small samples of grain," Bruce said.
The grain tank holds about a tonne of wheat and the sample bags can be lined up on a long, narrow table that swings out from the side of the harvester to make removing them easy.
Controlling the harvester is done mostly from a joystick in the cabin.
"It's hydrostatic drive so it's quite simple to operate," Bruce said. "In the cabin there is a grain loss monitor and you can adjust the sieves and make alterations to the cutterbar front to match changing crop conditions."
He said the DPI's Wintersteiger does about 200 hours each harvest.
"We have a research program with about 60,000 plots so it gets a lot of use but it's very comfortable to work in," he said.
