"It's amazing how much difference a full-fingered auger makes in beans," says Kendall Roetman, Hospers, Iowa, about his kit for Case IH combine soybean platforms. He says installing retractable fingers across the width of the feeder auger -- instead of just at the center -- evens out the flow of material from the cutterbar to the cylinder, reducing wear and tear and doing a better job of threshing.

Two years ago Roetman was frustrated with how poorly the 25-ft. Case IH 1020 soybean platform on his combine was feeding in the crop. "The problem was that soybeans bunched up at either end of the platform, and when they suddenly went on through they sometimes plugged up the combine."

Roetman knew Deere had been offering a full-fingered auger for the last three years on its combines, and a Deere dealer in his area was selling a retrofit kit for older Deere platforms that made them full fingered. "My neighbors with Deere full-fingered platforms were happy with them. However, my local Case IH dealer told me it would be 1 1/2 years before I could buy a full-fingered platform from Case IH. I thought that was amazing considering that New Holland also offers a full-fingered platform."

So he set about converting his own platform. He copied the finger setup at the middle of the auger on his platform, where fingers extend and then retract as they pull the crop in. "I'm using the same idea, just spreading it out over the length of the auger," says Roetman. "The fingers pull the crop in more aggressively, keeping it from bunching and resulting in a much more uniform crop flow."

The kit fits the original auger. The fingers attach to an eccentric cam and a plastic hub that rides on a 1-in. dia. shaft inside the auger tube. A 20-ft. platform gets 12 new fingers; a 25-ft. platform gets 16; and a 30-ft. platform gets 20. The fingers extend out about 5 in. when fully extended.

"You can bring your platform to my shop or ship the auger to us and we'll rework it and send it back. We also have some ready-to-go augers we can send out. Ninety percent of the parts in my kit are standard Case IH parts, so if repairs are necessary parts are readily available at your local dealer," he says.

Besides a more even crop flow, the fingers allow you to lift your reel out of the crop and just let the auger and fingers pull the crop in, says Roetman. "Without fingers, you have to run the reel low and tight against the auger in order to feed the crop in. When you run the reel that low, it's banging against the pods which increases shatter problems. While harvesting my bush-type beans this year, I was able to lift the reel completely out of the crop. The only time I lowered it into the crop was when I turned around at the end of the field, in order to pick up single plants. When I switched to harvesting my straight line beans, I did lower the reel again in order to tip the crop over and flip it into the auger. However, I set the reel only about 4 to 6 in. down into the top of the crop, not 12 or 18 inches like I used to." Kendall used the full fingered platform to harvest 430 acres of soybeans last fall. "The only problem we had was adjusting to how little help the crop needed from the reel to make the crop feed in," he says. Kendall's father, Robert, drove the modified combine to see for himself how well the kit worked. "The first thing dad said was, 'This is just like combining corn, everything just flows," says Ken. The full-fingered auger kit is designed only for Case IH 1020 soybean platforms.