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Oregon | Eastern Oregon. They ran them in winter wheat here after coming up from the south. Due to all the volcanic ash in our soil, it wears components out in one season that I had never replaced in the midwest. And some of the land they were on was too steep to cut up or across- a good stress test for propulsion. One of the guys told me they were heading north to continue racking up the hours- something like 800-100 hrs of development this year. 4 machines. 1 yellow. 3 red. One European spec. tires / lights etc. All with the new draper. I forget which were running the longitudinally mounted 7-cylinder motor. The crew was not real friendly even though we offered them a large secure shop to work on their machines. Whatever. If the new Massey is the culmination of all their work, I guess I would not have been in a real friendly mood either. Back in the day Deere ran a 6602 prototype on the same land and the old timers talk about an early side-discharge IH rotary prototype the engineers would run back into a shop located at the edge of the property when they saw someone approaching. The machine they describe looks a lot like the development mule in photographs from the IH archives and contained in the book "A Corporate Tragedy" about the collapse, break-up and sale of International Harvester Co. Anyhow- Agco did a lot of work around here last season on the Massey platform running the new draper- but we didn't see the reincarnated R series Gleaner- From the photos it looks like development work for that combine stayed in the midwest. A decision which seems odd considering that if the R has a strength, it is dry land wheat.
-mike | |
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Gleaner 9250 flex draper header
