Harvest 2009 - John Deere STS 9880i with stubble chopper

(Prototype 2006) Minimum tillage and direct seeding are developing quickly for environmental and economic reasons. However, the main obstacle remains the residues management. During these last years, appreciable improvements have been carried out to the harvesters: chaff spreader and straw chopper more capable. But the stubble remains and constitutes a problem when it is long. It is possible to reduce it by mowing low but at the expense of an important degradation of the harvesters performances. Another practice, which is very costly, consists in chopping the stubble after the harvest. It is why the principle consisting in chopping the stubble during the harvest seems particularly rational. This principle gave birth to the concept of BSC: stubble chopper behind the header.