Windrower

     Windrower, swather, mowing machine, these are all names for the same machine. I mentioned it yesterday and today I want to share how it works.

     Here it is again. The most prominent feature of any windrower is it's header. That's the part up front. It does most of the work. The very forward most section of the header is called the reel. On the reel you can see tines extending from beams on a drum. It rotates and as it does it places whatever plant is being cut in prime position to be cut much like a barber might use a comb to put your hair in prime position for snipping. The sickle bar is difficult to see in this picture (any picture for that matter) so I'll show you this:

     This is a sickle bar and only a sickle bar. The bar has pointy bits and triangle shapes at the base of the pointy bits. The triangles are sharp and they move laterally along the length of the bar through a groove in the pointy bits. The whole bar lays down sideways and as you pull forward through a crop, the sideways-moving sharpened triangles cut the stems of the plants. The pointy bits keep the plants from just being pushed from side to side. The windrower has a sickle bar running underneath the reel at ground level.

     This little machine is the predecessor of the windrower. Without a reel, the plants would often just be knocked over and not be cut at all. Most farms still keep one around because they're small and mobile, which makes them handy for chopping weeds if they get out of control.

     In the back of this header there is an auger conveyor. As you can see, it has a ridge of metal spiraling around it. It spirals in opposite directions on either side of the drum. As it rolls forward anything in the bottom of the header is pushed towards the center by the ridges. Many Headers use a conveyor belt to carry the plant matter to the center of the header instead of an auger conveyor.

     The material then just falls out the back of the header. (Some windrowers have a "conditioner" that further prepares the cut material for it's intended fate but as they're not inherent to the machine I won't discuss them here.) The rest of the machine is just a means of carrying the header and driver. The idea is to be left with workable windrows, which are just what the lines of plant matter are called. Several different things can be done with the plants at this point, but those are posts for another day.

     There are a great deal of variations in windrowers, but they all fill the same role. They cut plants and put them in rows. That much should be obvious at this point, what may not be obvious is that they're a vital part of bringing goods to the populace. Farmers and ranchers all over the county (and world) use them. In fact, short of tractors, they're probably the most commonly used (and useful) agricultural implement anywhere. Knowing that, being patient when you get stuck behind one on the road should be a snap.