My grandparents would be amazed!

How did the Massey Harris compared to the Allis Chalmers?

Speaking of the pickup trucks hauling grain, our mother often agreed to be the driver to the elevator. Our 3/4 ton Chevy with sideboards would hold around 90 bushel + or -. She would be waiting sometimes for HOURS just to get the truck full. Then the trip to the elevator to sometimes wait in line for minutes or hours. And nobody had a cell phone! Oh the good ol days!! Ryan

Edited by Ryan Renko - 24 Sep 2015 at 7:38pm

    I already had this ciphered before I read the last post. Using 1 gallon per job. Plow....disc....disc....harrow... plant....cult....cult....combine. That's 8 gallons, but I did not allow the extra fuel for plowing (my bad). So if Nebraska says add 4, now we are talking about 11 gallons.    Duane

   I will add one gallon,12. 24 foot harrow doesn't use a gallon per acre , now we are splitting hair. Just because someone heard someone say something does not make it so.

   I was going to throw the rotary hoe in for the odd year that it was needed just in case. Harrow/ rotary hoe, still 1 gallon.    Duane

I guess I should have started a new thread for "fuel consumption then and now". The numbers I threw out came from a guy who sold fuel to my brother when he was the manager at a cenex for 17 years. I had just met this guy in my brother's hospital room a few days before he passed away, and I got to talking about fuel and crude oil prices. I asked him what his thoughts were on crude oil prices being low, and he said that one of the reasons was due to people driving less than they used to. That really surprised me, because I thought people were driving more than ever. At least I am. Then I asked him if he knew any statistics on farm fuel usage. He had the answer without even hesitating. Now I am not 100 per cent sure of the years that he said it was 16+ gallons per acre, but I know it was 60s -70s era, but I know that he said today's usage was the 4+ gallons per acre. I have put a lot of thought into what he said, and I think they seem like realistic numbers. Got to remember, they are probably national averages, and not necessarily what happens in any one person's back yard. One small example that I see that kind of supports the numbers, is that I can picture my father in law plowing in the past with a gas guzzler, and having to make roughly 3 passes on a half mile strip to have an acre done. Now, some of my big farmer neighbors will cover 4 acres in one half mile pass.
   Didn't mean to cause controversy on an otherwise very nice thread. I just thought it was a pretty accurate assessment, and thought it was very interesting. Darrel

Ah yes, party lines! I'm "only" 49, and we had a party line until, I don't know, maybe I was 8 or 9? You only answered the phone on a certain ring pattern, or it wasn't your call. My Dad was in the air force 1956-60. He served with a guy from Warsaw, South Carolina. 2 quick stories about this guy: His grandpa took him to the train station with a horse and buggy to go to his basic training. Grandpa asks, "How long you gonna be?" "4 years," says Smitty. "I'll wait."

Smitty came over to Mom and Dad's place to use their phone to call home. He picks up the phone and says, "Operator, get me Warsaw South Carolina." Long pause......"Hello, Ma?!" Hahaha!!!

I know my dad would say I am peeing in the wind my farm insurance is several times more than the fuel to seed spar and harvest I'm looking at 50 ft chisel plows now my cummins in my bud will pull any load at .75 gal an acer no more seeding 500 dollar a bag conola to break even some of my land will be fallow unless basis improves and we can project a profit and more importantly lock in a profit my time will be spent either with my family working on our collection of tractors or running my construction equipment creating wealth for my family hard questions to ask yourself who benefiting from your work I agree with shameless the true wealth is in our farmland but being 3 miles from the bakken discovery well running out of oil is joke the govt will not allow small company's to drill the many zones that have oil all across this country the bonding spacing and every other law is set up for the majors will hundreds of lawyers

Ken in Texas wrote: 480x640 The way Grandpa and Grandma did it in "48". Picked it and shucked it and tossed it in the wagon. Before we got the 39B the wagon was pulled to the crib with horses. I was 8 at the time and helped unload ear corn into the crib. Later a custom sheller with his truck would show up and shell everything in the crib and grind some for chicken scratch. I still have the hand corn planters my family used and the husking pins they used when picking field corn. We never owned a corn picker. The custom sheller would also grind the cobs for chicken litter. They went back in the crib until we needed them

 

Ryan Renko wrote: I was out at the farm tonight watching our neighbor shell corn in his Case IH combine. Its a 8230. It was running a 8 row head and he was topped out and unloading or waiting to unload every 7 to 8 minutes. I could only imagine what the founders of our family farm would think because they picked corn by hand and put it in a horse drawn wagon less than 80 years ago. Ryan

While impressive compared to "the good ol days" I figured I would mention that a friend with a R70 Gleaner can fill his 310 bushel bin in 9 minutes without pushing it to the max, due to him still running an open gear black cornheader. Imagine what it would do if he hogged it with a Hugger! :O

It would be interesting to see when the competitors finally matched the productivity of the N7/R7/R70....

Alley, I don't know how much of that is the green machine and how much is operator not setting the combine properly- plus running like a striped A$$ ape.  You get a fleet of 6 combines and hired help, IMO that's what happens.  All that help is thinking about is the next field and quitting time.

Both of my renters run newer JD machines last year ( 680 and 97xx)  and run the machines themselves-not hired help and I haven't seen any volunteer corn problems.

 

BTW, party line at folks also till the phone company did away with the party lines- mid 80's I'd guess.

All those JD machines are leased machines. About 4 years ago they were Case IH machines For a couple years.
I never figured they were going all that fast compared to any other places I have seen them combining.

   Al