If harvest is equivalent to a Super Bowl for farmers, then winter is equivalent to the offseason – a time to rest and relax, or in the case of Cole Sheets’ family in Stuttgart, Ark., a time to hit the duck blind. While end of year tasks like tax planning and equipment maintenance might not be as exciting as off-season activities like chasing a pop star across the globe, they are an important way to simplify the coming growing season.  

Farmers who harvested rice in 2024 keep an especially close eye on after-harvest assessments as rice continues to challenge the structural integrity and durability of equipment. 

Rice creates challenges  

Rice has been a consistent crop for farmers in the Midsouth for many years, but changes in rice varieties have begun a unique cycle of wear and tear on farm equipment. 

“Anywhere from 20 to 30 years ago, a new type of rice came out, which we call hybrid rice now,” said Sheets, a generational rice farmer and Brandt brand territory manager. “If you look at it under a microscope, they've got fine, sharp teeth all the way around it. And in August, if you walk through a rice field, and while rice is majority headed out, if you brush up on it it's not going to make you bleed, but you can feel something rub against your skin.” 

Related:Early Arkansas rice and corn harvest close to record level

While essentially microscopic, those small changes in rice texture have caused big problems for equipment, especially during and after harvest. 

“It absolutely will eat some stuff up,” Sheets said. “Particularly augers – augers in grain carts, augers in grain elevators, and augers in combines.” 

Those textures don’t only cause more wear from abrasions, they also add stress to the overall structure of the auger by bulking up and blocking flow.  

“The grains of rice get together and clump up, and it's almost like a concrete brick when it gets clumped up,” Sheets said. “If you're on top of a truck or a grain cart and you’ve got soybeans or corn in there, stick your hand in it and you can probably push your hand through as far as you want. But with rice, it's so compact you're not going to get maybe halfway between the tip of your fingers and your elbow.” 

Check wear points in carts, combines and bins  

After harvest, especially for farms that harvested large quantities of rice acres or used grain carts heavily across many crop harvests without stopping for repairs, it can be important to give equipment a thorough check. 

“A guy that farms 20,000 acres, he's probably going to see more strain and more damage than a guy that farms 2,000 acres,” Sheets said. “But some of the farmers I talked to in the field, and some of my dealers that I work with, especially in grain carts say that lower and upper auger that's feeding into the truck - that's probably going to be where the worst wear spots are getting worn out.” 

Weights inside augers serve as a wear point. Looking at wear in augers before harvest , especially in rice Is important to get the best capacity and flow efficiency possible. Weights in the green auger are circular, the red auger has been re-flighted by a machine shop and has square weights. (Photos by Cole Sheets)

Repair or replace  

For rice farmers, augers on storage bins, combines and trucks as well as grain carts could all need repair or replacement following a harvest season. 

“With an auger, you're probably going to be replacing mainly some bearings and the flighting itself,” Sheets said. “When that auger gets worn down, you can take it to a machine shop, or you can buy a new one – there's no shame in that. If you take it to your local machine shop the majority of the time, they'll be able to re-flight it for you.” 

Re-flighting is the process of recovering the interior of the auger to help the flow of grain to and from the combine, grain cart or truck. For some farmers, Sheets said repairing augers can happen one to three times in a harvest season or as infrequently as every three years. 

Consider an upgrade 

For farms harvesting large quantities of rice, upgrading augers to chrome interiors or moving to a conveyor system can help limit wear and replacement frequency. 

“You don't see much damage in soybeans, maybe a little bit in corn as time and wear goes on, but it is nothing for a large rice farmer after harvest is over to look at replacing his augers in his grain cards, or in combines,” Sheets said. “If I'm selling, or my dealers are selling to a customer, and they farm rice, nine out of 10 times I can convince them to spend a little bit more money and buy a conveyor belt versus an auger.”  

Sheets said conveyors are often $20,000 to $40,000 more expensive than augers depending on packages and options, but in most cases the use life of a conveyor system can be anywhere from double to five times that of a standard auger. 

For farmers loyal to traditional augers, Sheets said chrome or even stainless flighting can also be a good option. 

“In our grain carts, we offer a chrome package, where at the main where points of each end of the auger, it's chrome flighted, and the chrome seems to help it last a little bit longer,” Sheets said.  “I've had customers that are interested in stainless steel and would spend the extra money just so they could get some more wear out of it.”  

Rice sets the standard 

While packages and options for a purchase like a vehicle might seem to be frivolous spending, product packages for grain carts or combines designed specifically for rice often contain adjustment to increase the use life of the product.  

“A lot of companies, including Brandt, are coming out with rice-specific packages,” Sheets said. “They may cost a little more on the front end, but they offer options added on, to try to add extra wear and extra flow, to be able to make it last a little bit longer and work a little bit better. Because anybody that's farming rice, knows exactly how tough it is.” 

The changes, Sheets said, are due in part to companies discovering that rice can set a high standard for equipment quality and durability.  

“If you build anything for rice, it's going to work for any other crop,” Sheets said. “If you build it specifically for soybeans, or build it specifically for corn, it's more than likely not going to work well for rice. But if you build something for rice, it's going to work for anything.” 

For checking and correcting equipment wear after rice harvest, now is the time, Sheets said.  

“My family farms too and I know farmers have got a lot of things on their minds, and a lot of times they'll wait till about a month before harvest to check the auger on the grain cart,” Sheets said. “Go ahead and check that stuff after harvest and get it out of the way, so you're not trying to get it done last minute next year.”