Combines WAKE UP

Actually, the red, yellow, and green camps are the ones playing "catch up" to us! Gleaner has had a class VII combine ever since the late 70's_early 80's with the intro of the N7. And I wouldn't worry about the R72 keeping up with a CAT or an STS from some of the things I've read about them - especially if AGCO decides (hopefully!) to incorporate some of our mods into production models in the near future.

live in the real world Gleaner will always be playing catch up due to poor marketing which has branded Gleaner with a poor reputation years ago

We weren't talking about market share, we were talking about size and capacity - at least that's how I understood it. When it comes to that, everyone else is playing "catch up" to Gleaner. And when it boils right down to it, Deere is playing "catch up" to the whole rotary concept. Tom langan

I don't think Gleaner has ever had a "marketing" problem, they've just been the victim of poor management in the past (KHD Ag). As far as playing catch up, Gleaner has often made incremental improvements to their combines, rather than holding back technology and making more radical model changes. For example, compare an early model "orange stripe" R52 to a current one, and note the changes!

You bet there is new stuff coming. Gleaner has got an outstanding machine now and is waiting for the right time in their eyes to bring out their latest. New assembly plant is well under contruction. I only wish that in the early '80s they wouldn't of put a name on there channel helicals as for edible beans and green sunflowers. If we would of been smart enough to leave the channel helicals in for the other crops we would not have lost any market share. We just didn't want to be switching helicals when they were ready to harvest another crop. After the introduction of the R50 ,that worked so well, we figured it out that we needed more positive helicals in the P1's to make them work great in most all crops and conditions. Then it took a few years after the introduction of the large P3's to figure out that the cylinder bars needed to be extended to the discharge and shocks were needed to stabilize the feed chain tention drums. You can no longer order a Gleaner without the extended bars and shocks are into the third year of production. While I would certainly never say Gleaner has been at the back of the pack I would say it took them too long to take an almost perfect design and make it perfect. I think the loss of market share years ago represents some of these shortfalls among other things of course. My bet is the next Gleaner will handle the huge variety of crops and conditions as well as the present ones but even better with more comfort. Who else could have such a simple make sense machine that can handle such a variety of crops with little changing even in the hills all in one model of machine.

I would have to agree with both of the comments. It seems that every company has been catching up with Gleaner as far as the mechanical and the features of the combines. As far as a r72 keeping up with the Cat maybe, and I mean maybe in good dry corn, but green steem beans sorry but no way. I hope Gleaner does and can come up with a new version they are due. Basically the combine that they have now has been out for 8 years it is time for a change, and Im sure it will be a good one, Now on the other comment on Gleaner catching up on marketing, I agree with that. During the late 70's and early 80's it was a great company, then the Germans step in and it all goes by by. lets face it Deere absolutley does not have the best of everything in the world that is for sure, but they market it very well. When you drive onto a deere lot what color do you see. Green , yellow and black. Agco dealers orange two silvers, ty orange, glenco green, bush hog red, massey red, black, duetz green, so and so on. Dont get me wrong Bob ratliff and robert schumada have done wonders marketing that company, but they are still catching up. My to cents