A combination of field bins and chaser bins has led to a quicker, more efficient harvest.
Warracknabeal, Victoria, cropper, Ross Johns said the process of harvest was about improving efficiency and he used a number of different options to ensure grain harvesters were working at capacity.
A 150 tonne Dunstan mother bin and a 31 tonne chaser bin were key tools.
“The very best thing I think I've ever bought was the Dunstan chaser bin which, I believe, has lifted the productivity quite substantially,” Mr Johns said.
“It certainly keeps the harvesters in the paddock when they're going and it keeps the trucks loaded and on the road.
“It is really about making the best use of those other assets that are around the operation.”
“The chaser bin can drop 25 tonnes in the back trailer of a B double, tops up a little bit out of the mother bin into the front trailer and he is gone,” he said.
“It is about efficiency of turnaround and getting the tonnes delivered as efficiently as possible."
Mr Johns said as soon as the harvesters are out of the crop they are not operating at peak efficiency.
“You can get probably an extra fifty per cent out of the operation of the harvesters rather than stopping and unloading. I think that is just a very, very big win."
Using two harvesters about 800 to 1000 tonnes per day is shifted.
“The logistics of moving that volume of grain, per day, is very tricky," Mr Johns said.
“These are 44 tonne B doubles and if you are going to move 800 tonnes you've got to virtually have 20 truck movements per day.
“It is one truck every half hour and that is very, very difficult to actually predict and manage. That is why you need a buffer in the mother bin."
It is the fourth Dunstan mother bin he has owned since 1987 - with the first still in operation.
The new Dunstan design mother bin has been a handy addition.
“I was a bit reluctant to buy the additional rear steering arrangement they've installed on these mother bins because of the additional cost, but I drove it and it follows just like a trailer behind a car.
“It is quite remarkable and I was surprised and very pleased,” he said also noting the spill guards on the top of the mother bin “which work exceptionally well”.
The shift from multiple small field bins to using a mother bin has saved a lot of labour.
“That frees up my time to manage the marketing and thinking about how to run these trucks more efficiently," Mr Johns said.
“Shifting small bins around can take a lot of time and they're a lot of effort and you generally don't get a full truck load out of them.
“Whereas, this mother bin, the trucks can pull up confident that they'll have a full load ready to go."
The chaser bin features a 20 inch auger and load cells are available to ensure legal road limits.
“You can put in 25 tonne or 26 tonne or whatever tonnage is required - they're accurate; they're precise,” Mr Johns said.
“There is also an iPad program which is operating on that load sensor which can tell us how many tonnes have been harvested from a paddock through the chaser bin, where that grain has gone, which trucks and how it's delivered.”