US Patent 11659787 Harvesting head reel-crop engagement

Method, apparatus, and non-transitory computer readable media for detecting reel-crop engagement for a header of a harvester. The header includes a reel configured to draw crop from a crop field toward the header as the harvester moves through the crop field and at least one crop detector mounted to the reel. Data is received from the at least one crop detector mounted on the reel, processed, and used to detect reel-crop engagement.