Pickup Headers/Farming Simulator 17
A Pickup Header is a type of Forage Header in Farming Simulator 17. It is designed to simply pick up materials from the field that have already been dumped there by another machine. In this way, a Pickup Header essentially turns your Forage Harvester into a sort of Loading Wagon. A Pickup Header can only pick up loose Grass or Hay. It cannot pick up any other materials, and it cannot cut fresh Grass itself.
Overall, a Pickup Header is an expensive substitute for using an actual Loading Wagon, unless you've already bought a Forage Harvester for other reasons. Nonetheless, Pickup Headers do have a couple of slight advantages over Loading Wagons.
Farming Simulator 17 offers three different models of Pickup Headers by default, all of which can be found in the "Forage Harvester Headers" category at the store. Strangely, the cheapest header is also the best one, having a slightly larger Working Area than the other models. Other than that, all three models are practically identical to one another.
List of Pickup Headers
Below is a list of the three Pickup Header found in the "Forage Harvester Headers" category at the store.
| Name | Price | Maint. cost per day |
Working Width (m) |
Max Work Speed (km/h) |
Power Consumption (hp) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rostselmash For Up 370 | 11,000 | 30 | 3.1 | 20 | 68 |
| Krone EasyFlow 300 S | 13,000 | 30 | 3.1 | 20 | 68 |
| New Holland 300FP | 14,000 | 30 | 3.0 | 20 | 68 |
Picking up Grass and Hay
The only thing a Pickup Header can do is to pick Grass and Hay off the ground. This works only on loose material that's been left on the ground previously - a Pickup Header cannot cut Grass or manufacture Hay, it can only collect them.
As long as the Pickup Header is active and lowered, and the Forage Harvester can find any container nearby to dump the material into, any Grass or Hay that touches the header's working area will get sucked up and transferred into that container automatically. If there is no valid container anywhere nearby, the Pickup Header will simply ignore the material.
When deciding which model of Pickup Header to buy, wider is better. For some reason, the widest Pickup Header available in the base game is also the cheapest, and has no disadvantages - making the choice extremely easy. It is unknown why the more expensive models do not have any advantages over the cheapest one.
Single-Player Note: You cannot hire a worker to do this job for you; It must be done manually. Therefore, it's not possible to use a secondary vehicle to tow a Container next to your Forage Harvester with this header, like you might do with other types of Forage Headers. The Harvester itself should tow its own container.
Comparison to a Loading Wagon
A Forage Harvester using a Pickup Header is functionally very similar to a Tractor using a Loading Wagon. Both machines can pick up Grass and Hay straight from the ground into a container.
Despite the similarity, there are a few minor differences between these two methods that can give an advantage to one or the other. Both methods might be useful to you, in different situations.
Pickup Header Advantages
- Slightly Wider: The Working Width of all Pickup Header models in the game are between 3.0 and 3.1 meters, while Loading Wagons have a Working Width of only 2.2 to 2.6 meters. This is an advantage of at least 20%. It might not sound like much, but a little extra width can help when picking up material that isn't perfectly arranged in a neat line.
- Can fill Tippers: A Forage Harvester can tow any type of container behind it. Therefore, unlike a Loading Wagon (which fills itself), it can fill a Tipper, or even a train of Tippers. Some tipper models are quite larger than any Loading Wagon, allowing you to pick up a lot more Grass or Hay in one go before your container fills up.
- Better Precision: Since a Pickup Header is mounted on the front of a Forage Harvester, it is easy to control what you pick up, and easy to back up and clear "that one last bit". Loading Wagons, on the other hand, are attached to the back of a Tractor - it is much harder to control where the Loading Wagon's working head will go, easier to "miss a spot", and much harder to reverse and clean up any missed spots.
Loading Wagon Advantages
- Cheaper: To use a Pickup Header, you need to buy the header itself, a Forage Harvester to operate it, and a container to hold the materials. A Loading Wagon, on the other hand, can be operated by most vehicles - particularly Tractors - and you probably already have at least one. This makes the Loading Wagon option significantly cheaper.
- Can Cut Grass: With a Loading Wagon attached to the rear of your Tractor, you can simply attach a Mower in the front and cut the Grass for the Loading Wagon to collect immediately behind you. This sort of combination is not possible at all with a Forage Harvester / Pickup Header.