Harvest Questions? Ask the Richmonds!

If you produce sugarbeets in the “Thumb” region of Michigan, you’ve probably heard of the Richmond brothers. There’s also a fairly good chance you’ve visited their farm shop and/or had them visit yours.

Mike and Ken Richmond are fourth-generation sugarbeet growers near Bay Port. Along with producing excellent beet crops themselves (see article on next page), they’ve gained quite a reputation for their expertise in modifying and adjusting beet defoliators and harvesters for optimum efficiency. In addition, they fabricate and sell upgrade kits for toppers and lifters. While Michigan constitutes their current base of operations, they hope to eventually expand into other beet-growing regions as well.

The Richmonds’ burgeoning business* — located in their just-expanded fabrication shop — germinated like most farmer-established enterprises: out of their own experiences. “We’ve dug beets all our life,” Ken points out. “Along the way, we didn’t like the way our harvester worked — so we pulled it into the shop and started messing with it. Then we looked at other growers’ units, talked with a lot of people.

“We built a machine that would wrap grab rolls — coming up with different ideas of how to wrap . . . how to put spacings in rolls to make beets move different ways in different harvesters . . . developing different kits. And then it just ‘blew up’ from there — to the point where now we can hardly keep up [with demand].”

The Richmonds’ educational background has been an important component of their business success. Mike earned a degree in accounting and business; Ken’s is in heavy equipment mechanics. “So Mike runs the numbers side of it, and I run the mechanical side,” Ken explains. “But we both know enough about fabrication and farming to make it all work.”

Straightening, wrapping and replacement of lifter grab rolls has been a big part of the Richmond operation for several years. “We have a lot of stones around here,” Mike relates. “Even with brand new harvesters, we have to work on them for digging in our conditions.” In the Upper Midwest, the brothers note, many beet growers use plastic on their rolls. “And then they run the wrap on the plastic — which is a great idea until you get stones,” Ken remarks. “Once the plastic is gone, gaps open up between the grab rolls and you start losing beets.”

The Richmonds’ solution for Michigan conditions has been to add durable innovations to steel rolls. “We tighten up our tolerances; we don’t do anything with plastic,” Ken explains. “Also, we wrap our transitions in the rolls differently. For example, we’ll widen out the wrap through transitions or narrow it up; put kicker plates in the transition; all kinds of things.

“If a beet doesn’t move smoothly through the harvester, it’s going to get damaged,” he continues. “You have to keep it moving. If the rolls are worn out and the beets are just ‘sitting’ there, all your roll will do is chew up those beets until it gets them to move. But if the wrap is good and everything is at the speed it should be, those beets work through the harvester the way they’re supposed to. They’ll get clean, and you’ll get the capacity.”

This past winter, in cooperation with Michigan Sugarbeet Advancement and Michigan Sugar Company, the Richmonds conducted two harvest clinics for Michigan beet growers. The clinics drew large crowds and plenty of questions. “Mike and I talked for about three hours straight,” Ken recounts. The clinics’ focus was on “quality” — quality of defoliating and harvesting operations, and the quality of beet roots going into storage piles.

“It was a visual clinic, with demonstrations — not just Mike and I up there ‘running our lips,’ trying to sell stuff,” Ken emphasizes. “We’re trying to educate growers about what we’re working on, what we think works — and what we think doesn’t work.”

While harvester condition and adjustment were stressed, so too were defoliator maintenance and operation. “Everybody seems to direct their efforts into the harvester”" Ken observes, “while the topper is one of those deals where you basically tend to pull it out, grease it and take it to the field. A lot of toppers out there are just plain worn out.”

Along with stressing some basic defoliator maintenance — such as the absolute need to be running good-quality flails — the Richmonds have taken topper performance a big step further by developing defoliator upgrade kits. The kits, comprised of components such as new-style flails, heavy-duty side plates, heavy-duty flail rods and a new rod-locking system, “keep side pressure consistent on the units,” Ken explains. “They hold side tolerances of flails better so they’re not working out of center to the point where you can’t properly defoliate the top of the beet. It definitely makes your used topper better.”

The Richmonds have a new line of kits coming out for the 2009 harvest. They’ll also be field testing additional upgrades this fall with an eye toward having them on the market in 2010.

If that’s not enough innovation, they’ve also been involved in building 60-ton carts for a farm that runs transfer beets. Finally, this fall they’ll be cooperating with Ridgetown College (Ontario) researcher John Zandstra on harvest damage studies. An electronic impact recording device — placed within the beet row — will be use to measure bruising and beet quality with different harvesters and under various operating parameters.

For years, the Richmond brothers have visited numerous area farms to straighten grab rolls and perform other harvester adjustments. Now, however, they are at a stage where they’d prefer to educate more fellow growers to perform these functions themselves. “It was convenient for them,” Ken says, “because we would come out with our service truck, straighten their grab rolls, do other adjustments — and do it quickly. They’d often stand back and watch, without paying real close attention.

“Now we’re to the point where we’re too busy. So we want to educate the farmers as to straightening their own grab rolls, doing all the right adjustments. It’s not hard, and it’s not that they wouldn’t do it. It was just very convenient to have us there.”

The process also involves educating growers on the life-span of various harvester components, i.e., knowing when to replace them and when it’s unnecessary. “We have farmers who dig 500 acres, and every two years they’re pulling out every grab roll and putting new ones in,” Ken illustrates. “They bring them to us, and I go, ‘Boys, you probably could have gotten another year out of these rolls if you had just hard-faced your transitions.’ ”

On the flip side, no one wants a lifter breaking down during harvest. So that grower digging 500 acres also needs to recognize where the cutoff exists between “our rolls are ‘junk’ versus ‘our rolls will make it another year,’ ” Ken states. The Richmonds advise growers who are thinking about replacing grab rolls to give them a call, and they’ll then come out and evaluate whether replacement is warranted. “If the rolls just need to be straightened or hard-faced to get another year or two out of them, leave them in,” Ken suggests.

The approach is similar with other key components, such as lifter wheels. Growers often ask the Richmonds’ opinion on whether a set of wheels is too worn to make it through another season. “The first thing we’ll ask is, ‘How many acres do you dig?’ ” Ken says. “And the next question is, ‘Are your beets heavily populated or thin?’ If the beets are thin and you have worn-out lifter wheels, you can pick up those bigger beets. But if you have thick, lush beets, we’ll tell the farmer he may want to put on new lifter wheels and tighten up the pinch points to make sure all those [smaller] beets are being dug.”

The Richmonds stock lifter wheels at their shop. If a grower is unsure of what to do, they’ll invite him to come by prior to harvest, pick up a set of wheels and put them in his shop. “Then, if you get to the point where you’re losing some beets, stop and change the wheels. Just bring us the old cores when you’re done. And if you’re able to make it through the season with [the old wheels], so be it.”

The Richmonds’ level of trust in their fellow growers is further exemplified by the “honor system” parts business they operate. A couple years ago they approached several other Michigan growers with a proposal. If those growers would provide a list of harvesters (including model numbers) owned by their neighbors, the Richmonds would develop “care packages” (parts inventories) for the machines in each area. They’d then send out a letter to all area growers, telling them that ‘Grower X’ would have on hand such “care packages” for their model in the event they needed replacement parts. “It’s open 24/7, and it’s on the honor system,” Mike relates. “You just write down what you take, and you’ll then be billed accordingly.”

The Richmonds tested the program at a single location in 2007, and it proved very popular. They expanded to several more farms last season and plan to add an Ontario location this coming fall.

Rick Gerstenberger, a Sandusky grower and Michigan Sugar’s board chairman, is one of the cooperating “care package” hosts. He’ll commonly receive calls from neighboring growers, asking if he has a particular part on hand. The answer is typically affirmative. “I have a notepad there, and they’ll come and get what they need” — often during evening or middle-of-the-night hours, Gerstenberger says. “It works very well.”

Gerstenberger, who has known the Richmond brothers since the mid-1990s, has utilized their services and products on numerous occasions through the years. Along with having them rebuild grab rolls, “I have a diverter roll they made that goes in front of the ferris wheel on my Art’s-Way 692. It diverts the beets over and around the grab rolls,” he relates.

“They do ‘tons of things’ like that,” Gerstenberger continues — digger wheels, mud scrapers, paddle shafts among them. “With all these [components], they make engineering design changes to make them work better.” As an example, he cites the elevator discharge sprocket on his 692. The factory sprocket is one inch wide; the Richmonds came up with replacements two inches wide. “They tested them last year on their own machines, and the life span is close to three times [that of the one-inch sprocket],” Gerstenberger states.

“They know how to make beet harvesters work. They’re innovative businessmen, always up to date on new technology.

“And they run a successful farming operation, too.” — Don Lilleboe