Is this a new combine in the works?

[smokeyjay]

Good question, Shaggy.  I think they will be limited in use, due to their size and weight.  Imagine the trouble custom harvesters would have when they haul them around.  Not to mention the 60 flexible headers.  Western KS and places that have contigous acres might find them workable.  I know of a couple 100k acre farms in Alberta that might use them. Then again, I remember when the headers were smaller and people said they couldn't get any bigger.  A landlord talks about running a five foot Allis.  Imagine that.

[Shaggy98]

I understand Smoke, back in the 70's we bought a 2 year old gleaner M with a 22' rigid header.  Can you imagine a 22' swath going thru the field?  Worst of all, we had to buy a header trailer because we had to remove it to get the combine in the shed.  I remember later in the 70's, when grandpa put up his latest shed, he put in a 24' sliding door so we wouldn't every have to worry about taking the header off again.  How times have changed, but I'm loving every minute of it.

[BTS4-210]

they should have put tracks on it R1's are useless   or at least big dual rice and canes I am not seeing the added  capacity   every body around here runs 700bu grain carts or so and unloads on the go

[smokeyjay]

That should be a valid concern.  My thinking would have been to figure out a better way to move grain away from the combine and not make it such a behemoth.  The majority of silage cutters don't have twenty ton containers hitched to their machines, and they harvest 80 acres in short order.

Then again, perhaps this size isn't seen as a behemoth in some mega farmer's eyes.

I would think a strategic move would have been to make high capacity machines more agile and less cumbersome.  One could automate grain cart operations with smart computers, having more than one to keep the grain flowing from the combine.  Agility and flexibility is a better fit for many operations, rather than investing so much captial in one machine.

[highyields]

"bigger is better"  perhaps not.   on this site there is discussion about how we are in "peak corn" and how we have had an actually decrease in the trend line in the last 10 years of corn yields.  look at what the combine sizes have done in the past 10 years?  I think soil compaction is a major problem and we are just to one sided we can't see it.  Its like standing in the forest and not seeing the trees. 

that being said, this doesn't surprise me any.  Why not make all the combines this way But make a class six with a smaller bin. 

I thought the reason to have grain carts was to increase efficiency???    not having to stop the combine to fill the truck. 

I honestly think its rediculous but It will sell.   

[Shaggy98]

If we all got paid for our thoughts, we would all be self proclaimed millionaires.

[Nebrfarmr]

You have a point.   On our soils, if it is wet at all, we empty the combine at the end of the field.   We once lost quite a bit of yield, on a field that we tried that with when it was a little damp.   I think part of the problem is that our wheel widths aren't all the same, so we make 3-4 tracks instead of two.   Then again, is it better to have 4 tracks 'kind of' packed, or two tracks 'very' packed.   I guess when one goes to 32 or 64 row everything, you'll just follow the same tracks every year.

[BTS4-210]

tracks float the best in wet  conditions  way better than wide terra tires  or duals  doesn't get much wetter than a rice field, farmers that have track tractors are rolling rice with them 

[Shaggy98]

Not sure of the exact percentage Neb, but I think it is 90%.  Soil scientists claim that 90% of soil compaction is produced from the first track thru the field.  This is where all the talk of controlled traffic comes to play.  We are all suppose to match our planters, sprayers and harvesters with the same footprint, and to travel the same track across the field and avoid diagonal driving patterns.

[BTS4-210]

i will add that running 710 42  duals on a front wheel assist   is also working  out well  starting to see more and more of  that