A grain combine was modified to allow single pass corn grain and stover harvesting. The harvester is capable of simultaneously delivering clean corn grain to an onboard storage tank and chopped corn stover to a transport or compaction device via a blower. A new residue chopper was developed to replace the conventional flail chopper available on the combine. The new chopper relies on shear cutting in two perpendicular planes to reduce the size of all stover particles to 51 mm or less. Testing of the machine was conducted using two headers (conventional corn head, modified row crop head), two choppers (conventional flail chopper, prototype double shear chopper), two blower configurations (with blower, without blower), and three ground speeds. The modified row crop head can harvest the majority of the above ground corn plant material and harvests two to three times as much stover as a conventional corn head. The prototype double shear chopper requires 12 kW less power than the flail chopper and uniformly sizes the stalks and cobs. The head type does not significantly affect the chopper or blower power.
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