A GREEN combine?

No, it is not an end to life as we know it.  But it was educational.  Actually kind of fun.  And a bit bewildering.  Jerry from Schilling Brothers brought us out a demo combine Monday.  We have been talking and I commented I had never even driven a John Deere combine.  He said he could take care of that.

This is not it, I didn't get a good shot of the side. But it looked just like this one I found online.  This one was experienced.  It wasn't some shiny, carefully gone through by the shop demonstrator.  In fact it still had someone's seed corn jacket stuck behind the seat where it had been forgotten. This was how it would look after being used a while.  Steve asked me to take pictures.  I took a few, but was too busy to take very many.  This is Aman finishing out a land.

We were cutting double crop beans in a field with an irrigator without an alley, so we had to start in the middle and work one way so the 'gator could be moved. So he ended up with a 2 ft or less strip near the road.  The header is 30 ft wide.  The combine is sized to run about the same speed we run our 20 ft head.

This is the operator console.  The 3 orange buttons on the left are the throttle. It's like Mom needs on her lawnmower.  It has idle, high idle, and operating speed.  No lever, just touch a button.  The big yellow buttons at the top turn on the separator and the header.  Other buttons turn the rear wheels on, adjust fan speed, etc.

It is an interesting machine the header has a one touch connection.  You unhook the header lock and disconnect all the hoses and lights in one motion.  To set the combine you just select the crop on a screen and it automatically adjusts.

Am I going green?  Good question I can't answer yet.  I have to look at some numbers, do some thinking, still haven't decided if my best move is trading or rebuilding what we have.  But  I could get used to a 30 ft head.

What would Dad think?  If you look in the NW corner of the tool room there is a board Dad saved.  It was from the box the cab came in for his 55 John Deere combine.  If we went green Dad would understand.  He's also the one who bough the Bush Hog from the dealer across the river.  Yes, there's more to that story ...