Combines Need info comparing JD 9660 STS to R75 with CDF

my guess is that this is unloading on the go with plenty of support trucks to haul away from the cart i've combined 12 acres an hour in 40 bu bns with my N7 and 24' flex unloading on the headlands but i was going 5.5 mph in high podded easy thrashing medium height bns but was hard pressed to combine 7 a_hr in corn with an 8row head and unload on the headland my neighbors only combine 100a_day with their 9760sts and a 12r20 with a 1000bu cart and 2 semis hauling away and i only get 40a_day with my N7 and 6r30 but i end up helping haul as i only have 2 tandems and 1 semi

last fall I hired a guy with a current model 9-something JD STS combine to do some of my corn and beans. He said it was a class 7 machine but I dont recall the exact model number. He had a 6 row corn head and 25 foot bean head. Compared with my 17 year old R60 with 525 head and 6 row Hugger, I would say the combines were very comparable with his having a slight edge in capacity in corn. His bean head did a better job than mine while my corn head outclassed his. Either machine kept 4 tandems busy hauling corn up to 1 mile.

We ran a R75 w_CDF side by side with a 9760 for about 100 hours. Not much difference in tough green stem beans with one exception. If the Deere opened up the cylinder he could move on about a half MPH faster than we could run, we could not open the grate and pick up speed. HOWEVER when this adjustment was used the Deere sample went unacceptable with un threshed pods in the bin and the chopper shot beans out like a machine gun. When set to do the same quality job in bin sample and field loss( and I know I will be accused of prejudice but here goes -this is the Gleaner site keep in mind) we outperformed the Deere in green stem beans by a tad. One experiance, I was operating and pushed the 75 to its limit as was the Deere operator, when I reached the limit of hp I plugged the feed housing - the Deere almost, whew, plugged the cylinder. Scared him so bad he backed off. I reversed and kept on trucking, the CDF worked really well in green stem beans. Deere has a nice combine; Gleaner's simplicity is paramount in long term service, especially in the electrical area . The onboard diagnostic system is neat for fine tuning auto header height control and lateral tilt. Deere's one point header hook up is better than ours for the moment - Gleaners new hookup is coming soon - if one changes headers a lot for small fields, but the electrical plug needs to be separate. The 75's 330bu bin that one can climb up on and look into is nice as well. I gained a lot of information I hope to put to use in the future. Best I can remember I also posted some experiences back two months ago.

I see you listed the productivity numbers as an average between corn and soybeans...I assume 50-50 split. This however seems low even for corn (20ft vs 25 ft). If I'm doing my math correctly at 8.3 acres_hour the average speed would then be 3.42 mph with 8 row Hugger. Is that really the average speed your combine was maxed outIJ What was the most limiting factor of the combinesIJ

You have to realize that he is stopping to dump.If you run 5 mph shelling corn,you cant figure you are going to average that.Sounds to me ,that he is very close on the avg. if you stop and dump,or catch up with your trucks,or change fields during the day,you arent going to avg any more then that in a 10 hour day. Just my opinion, Illinois Gleaner

After thinking about my earlier comments, I have a possible explanation for the JD corn head doing a less than acceptable job. The JD operator ran his corn head much higher than I ran the Hugger. I have been giving his head failing marks when all along maybe he had to keep the trash out of his machine to keep it from plugging. I typically ran 5.7 mph except where corn was running over 220 bu and stalks were very wet in field swales. I dont remember how fast he ran but it wasnt any faster than I pushed the R60. There were times when I had to reduce speed to keep engine speed where it belongs but not as often as he did.

Your right that isn't bad productivity if he is including dumping time. I believe he was talking acres_sep. hour. That said, I then assumed he shut sep. off while unloading. Either way both brands of combines should be able to run as fast as ground conditions or other factors like that allow...I would be dissapointed in either if it was something like power, shoe, etc...

More from Bluefarmer "About Machinery link: if we can get the avg. price per acre around $13 for a machine for the season and that is last dollar spent, I don't think we would ever want to own one.They are claiming we would save $ by running a 9660 30', 8 row instead of our Gleaners.Our roll program for the R-75 is a pretty fair deal, maybe sell the older R-72 and try it for 3 yrs. Why notIJIJIJ" Thanks, Bluefarmer

When you say 13 an acre. Does that include the headsIJ You wouldnt get it done any cheaper then that I wouldnt think,wether you rent,own,lease or what ever,that sounds cheap. IG