2016 Harvest Thread

[40FordDeluxe]

I know some of you like seeing pictures during harvest time. This past Saturday was my first day driving. This year my friend got a new to him 06 Pete with a C13 Cat. This morning it went down. The previous owners, a Peterbilt dealership in Phoenix Arizona, did a lot of work to the engine. Too bad they left a t bolt from a clamp in the cold pipe between the 2 turbos and it ruined the turbos. This truck ran all day Monday through Saturday hauling grain, and died this morning after unloading at the farm.

They also got a new grain cart which will hold 1500 bushels. Then they got 2 new trailers. 48' with tag axles in the rear. Now they can haul 100k legally. Boy, that is rough getting out of the field with 100k and 430hp C13. they still don't have their 2nd new trailer. These trailers have automatic tarps which is awesome!

Josh's aunt got a new 2017 F250 with a 6.7 Scorpion. He made me drive it back to the farm once. I didn't want to get in it at all. That way I don't have any itches to scratch. It's a nice truck, but I'm not digging the new body style much. It said it was only getting 14.8mpg. That's rough. Hopefully it gets better as it only had 640 miles on it.

[40FordDeluxe]

Here are some pics of their bin set up at the main farm. I'll get some more pics of combining next weekend. The corn was so tall in this field that they had to take the rollers off the sides of the head because the ears were so high up and the stalks were rotten just under the stalks so the ears were falling on the ground. The ears were about 6-8' up. They were about 3-4' higher than as high as the corn head will go up on th ecombine. Crainess. They couldn't go very fast. They only did about 70 acres Saturday but we hauled 12-14 loads to the farm. They were seeing 250-280 bushels/acre on that field.

[40FordDeluxe]

Here's a dash shot of the '17 F250. The last load I ran, I started smelling coolant half way back. We were running about 24 miles each way. When I pulled in to the bin site, smoke was rolling out from under the hood a little. It never got hot so I got luckily I didn't have farther to go.

[Mike P]

". Too bad they left a t bolt from a clamp in the cold pipe between the 2 turbos and it ruined the turbos....."

Now that's just plain ugly


They were just starting to get the corn and beans out of the fields in Ill where I was visiting a week and a half ago. The size of the current equipment is massive compared to what I remember dad using in the 60's.....a 2 row John Deere tractor mounted picker with a sheller attachment and a 57 Chevrolet 2 1/2 ton grain truck.

Of course back then Dad was farming 320 acres (the home place and a neighbors place he was renting) which was about average for the time. Now if you're farming less than 1200 acres is a small operation. I understand progress but I still find it a bit sad to see all the old family farms gone.

Thanks for posting


.

[NTFDAY]

My late grandfather on my dad's side farmed a little less than 100 acres from sometime in the 30's until the late 60's in southwest Ohio. A group of farmers in the area with similar sized farms would travel from farm to farm at harvest time and not a one of them had any large piece of equipment. Noone became rich though they all lived comfortably and for the most part very frugal. All of his land now belongs to a natural gas pipeline company.

[34_40]

Thanks for sharing the pics Ryan. Out our way there won't be much of anything to harvest, the drought has pushed most crops to fail.

We could only irrigate for almost an hour every other day. 2 of my family member homes have had their wells go dry, 1 has a new deeper well and the other is waiting for the driller to get there. It may be weeks of waiting there is that much demand.

[40FordDeluxe]

Thanks for sharing the pics Ryan. Out our way there won't be much of anything to harvest, the drought has pushed most crops to fail.

We could only irrigate for almost an hour every other day. 2 of my family member homes have had their wells go dry, 1 has a new deeper well and the other is waiting for the driller to get there. It may be weeks of waiting there is that much demand.

Isn't it absolute ludicrous how whacked this weather has been this summer? Your area in dire need of rain, we have gotten slammed with rain. We surely don't need much more. Eastern Iowa is dang near flooding and our rivers are super high too.

MikeP, there are a lot of family farms still around here but it has been on the decline for sure. It is sad. And if you aren't a farmer and want to become one, forget about it. Your best bet is to go work for a farmer and hope you have a job for a while. Josh and his uncle farm 4500-5000 acres depending on what other land they can rent. It's just his aunt and uncle, one hired hand, and him all year. They try to get as much help in the spring and fall as they can. They don't have much luck especially since everyone around them is busy doing the same.

It'll be around $6k to fix that C13. The truck has warranty on it from the previous owner but who knows how long it'll take to get resolved. Those compound turbos on those C13's usually die at 800k so a lot of people put on a PDI single turbo kit on them. But, Cat won't honor any warranty after that. So he is unsure what he'll do at this point. Just hope none of his other tractors decide to give up the ghost. (Yeah, good luck with that.)

I should have gotten pictures of their turbo maintainer. It is a $100k field combination work disc. Last fall some how the LH wing cylinder got bent and nearly ripped the ram off. The ram alone was $1500. They had it repaired last fall. Guess what, it happened again Saturday morning. Let's say they're real thrilled and they're only 2 weeks into harvest.