2009 Harvest Pictures

[thoffman]

Here's my addition to this thread. Jason (another Cub Cadet and tractor fan) running the JD combine.

Loading "on the fly"

And here's the grain cart I help out with.

 

[wcompton]

Rode along on Friday with my uncle finishing up the beans. Twin rotors have been working this farm since BEFORE rotary combines officially sold. (testing with Sperry-New Holland on the pre-production TR70's)

 

[dfrisk]

WYATT - My Buddy who retired from JD Davenport last spring helped His old Boss out last week. Kevin had a Chevy 292-powered JD 4400, after an hour in His Boss's JD 9400 He was SOLD!

He was running beans someplace about 20 miles from Eldridge, IA, testing about 11% moisture and the yield monitor was showing 50 BPA in the poor spots and 70-75 in the good beans! Decent Money at $11/bu.

 

[kmcconaughey]

These just in from Ryan Mull:

Ryan says about the next 3 photos:

<blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!><font size=1>quote:</font>

are two working in the same field.<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>

Ryan says this about the next two photos:

<blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!><font size=1>quote:</font>

This one is opening up the field, followed by the tractor and cart right behind him.<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>

The last 3 here Ryan says this about them:

<blockquote><hr size=0><!-quote-!><font size=1>quote:</font>

are from this past weekend. Part of our farm has been in government CRP for 20 years, and our renter decided to no-till soybeans. Only they planted about 40ft off the fencerows and left too wide of waterways. We tried the '51 M & #8 Little Genious trip plow, but the roots kept tripping the tongue, so we stepped up to the '59 D17, and added a dual because we needed a little more land weight. I pulled out several roots that were 6" diameter along the woods and had the front wheels 12-18" off the ground several times. This is an AC snap-coupler 3-16" plow. 16.9-28 wheels and duals. I didn't get a pic but after doing the plowing, we put the other dual on and did some discing as well. That is my father in the pics.
<!-/quote-!><hr size=0></blockquote>

 

[kide]

One of our neighbors....

He had two more wagons that he'd dropped - he told me not to show these pics to the sheriff....too many for the road...

 

[dfrisk]

KENDELL - I always liked those pretty blue & white wagons. I can imaging pulling just four of them empty was a scary situation. I would not have wasted the time to hook six together. I hope He's planning on pulling them home one-at-a-time when they're full. That little green tractor doesn't look very big.

Can't remember where it happened but a year or two ago somebody had a Big grain cart full of wet corn, and no truck or wagon to unload into, so He pulled the cart into town. The Sheriff waited until He pulled across the scale to see what His GROSS weight was them wrote Him the Over Weight ticket. Let's just say the selling price of the corn didn't even come CLOSE to paying the ticket!

 

[kide]

Dennis:
I've been waiting to get a picture of his combine (big, new JD) parked at night - he backs it into the barn and closes both doors so that just the head is outside - it looks like it's peeking out to see if the corn is ready....
I believe he's hauling it right across the road to his farm - less than a1/4 mile. We actually don't have any elevators close anymore - I think he drys it and it heads out on truck to Maumee or elsewhere. (we're such geniuses here in Michigan, we tore up all the railroad tracks and eliminated a lot of the small town grainery businesses...)

 

[dfrisk]

Most of the guys around here combine like Ryan's pic's. Combine never stops, unload into the cart on the run and unload it into the semi on the ends of the field. Closest BIG grain elevator is about 6 miles from my house. Most years they have a pile of corn outside that would cover a football field 50 ft deep! PLUS another pile inside a special building at least that big, and several bins that must hold 50,000 bu. each

Tearing out all the RR tracks wasn't just a MI thing. The elevator DAD did business down in IL was on a RR track. They tore the tracks out in the 70's. A LOT of lumber, road oil for the road commissioner, grain, fertilizer, etc was hauled in/out of that little town of 100 ppl. In it's Heyday that town had three feed mills, a lumber yard, restaurant, general store, fertilizer co, tavern of course, bank, repair garage, elementary school, church, THREE trucking co's, and one of the largest FIREWORKS Mfg's in the USA.
Couple yrs ago, 4-5 maybe they built a HUGE grain loading termnal about 30-35 miles from where I grew up. They can load 100-car trains for feedlots & distilleries down south in about 8 hours. Semi's run into those terminals round the clock year round.

The BIGGEST CAT Lexicon combine is rated at 6000 bu./hr in good dry corn, that's about eight semi-loads an hour. I think JD has one about the same size. Not sure how C/IH's biggest one compares but I think it's a bit smaller, about 5000 bu/hr.

 

[dmull]

I have a customer that has a Cat 585R and a Cat 480. They sold their JDs 7-8 years ago and haven't looked back. Said that JD and CNH are just now starting to catch up with the engine HP, which is what was the primary difference.

 

[mhomrighausen]

A little over a year and a half ago I had the privilege of visiting with a gentleman that grew up around the Williamsburg, Iowa area. He told me that Kinze Manufacturing was considering building their own combine until they found out that Cat was coming out with one. At that point in time the founder of the company got together with Cat and helped them to develop the Cat combine. He did it simply because he never had any use for those green ones.

 

[jbaker]

Well I know its not 2009 harvest but a neighbor down the street was doing soy beans with this monster, at least he had the right color on the grain wagon mover.

It is rated to handle up to 4800 bushels of corn per hour. WOW...at least thats what catapiller says

 

[dfrisk]

JEFF - They posted a link to a video a month ago on the RPM forum where a CAT Lexion ran for ten hours up around Yorkville, IL combining 230-240 bu/acre corn. In ten hours they combined something like 51,000 bushels of corn. One combine, two operators. Think they had 5-6 semi's hauling away from the combine.

Granted Dad never raised any 240 bushel corn, heck, 120 was a really great yield back then. But most years he had 80-100 acres of corn, rest of the 160 was hay, hogs, and oats for seeding the hay & hog pasture for the next year, so his corn crop was 12,000 bu. at most, most years around 8000-9000 bu. That combine should be able to shell his entire corn crop in 15 minutes! Took Dad a MONTH with the 2M-E picker on the '51 M.

First problem I see is Dad only ever planted eight 38" rows for end rows. That big CAT Lexion needs a 12 or 16 row head to feed it enough corn to work right, Dad would have had to plant more end rows. The last 3-4 yrs Dad farmed that 160 we ripped at least 1/4 mile of fence out between fields. We went from two 40 acre fields & three 20's and a 16 acre field where the four acres for house & farm buildings were to one 40, a 60, a 36, and a 20 acre field. To use a combine that big we'd have had to rip out some more fence. ;-)

Seems like a 30 ft bean head like that one is the smallest you see anymore on a combine. Dad never combined beans, the last two years he farmed he planted beans but hired them combined. Dad's old #30 JD pull-type taking two rows at a time with the seven foot platform would have been real slow going. Been lucky to get ten acres/day. Now days combines can cover ten acres per HOUR.