When it comes to harvesting equipment for Case IH, Scott Acker is who you want to talk to. He’s their Director, Harvesting Marketing. I spoke with him at POET’s Project LIBERTY field day right after he answered a bunch of questions from farmers who were attending.
Sam says POET approached them with the idea of collecting cobs to make ethanol about a year ago. They discussed the business opportunities and concluded that this was a promising venture. He says they need to provide farmers with incentive and options to harvest both the grain and cobs so POET can make more ethanol. They’re working on it.
The harvesting options Case IH is working on include CCM and a cart behind the combine that collects the cobs separately from the grain. He says it’s best then to just pile the cobs for later pickup.
You can listen to my interview with Sam here: [audio:http://www.zimmcomm.biz/poet/poet-liberty-08-acker.mp3]
You can also download the interview with this link (mp3).