"No forage harvester has a good stone trap so we built our own," says Leonard J. Digney, Raymore, Sask.

Digney raised the existing pickup on his harvester 5 in. off the ground to keep it from picking up rocks and then mounted another pickup in front of that. Stones fall back to the ground through the 4 to 5-in. gap between the pickups as material is picked up and passed into the machine.

"You lose a little forage through the gap but the little you lose is more than repaid by stopping the rocks," says Digney. He used an old Massey 21 pickup cut down to size for the job but says he's experimenting with other belt-type pickups. He says the old-style pickup has a tendency to wrap. The add-on header is belt-driven off the forage harvester pickup.