Not your grandpa's tractor

[Warden Callaway]

Get a load of the controls and electric equipment on this John Deere tractor. 

 

 

 

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

Well, I recognized a steering wheel and an exhaust pipe and some wheels and tires but the rest looks foreign (alien) to me.  Might have been a seat in there but it wasn't a stamped steel one.  I guess it's tractor of some kind out of a Buck Rogers movie.

[Warden Callaway]

Dad and his first tractor.  I think it is a Farmall 14.  It was on steel wheels but he had it converted to rubber.  My older sister.  Don't think I was born yet. Our house is directly behind him on the hill.

 

 

 

[Sedalia Dave]

4 hours ago, Warden Callaway said:

Get a load of the controls and electric equipment on this John Deere tractor. 

 

 

 

 

Welcome to what John Deere has become. All that electronic gadgetry is proprietary so only a John Deere authorized service technician can repair it. You as the owner have been locked out of repairing anything. 

 

Auto industry tried the same thing but congress stepped in. Farmers were not as lucky.

[Rip Snorter]

5 minutes ago, Sedalia Dave said:

 

Welcome to what John Deere has become. All that electronic gadgetry is proprietary so only a John Deere authorized service technician can repair it. You as the owner have been locked out of repairing anything. 

 

Auto industry tried the same thing but congress stepped in. Farmers were not as lucky.

Not only that, if I recall correctly Deere does not stock parts, I'm not sure if Case does, though my local dealer has excellent service.

[Subdeacon Joe]

4 hours ago, Forty Rod SASS 3935 said:

Well, I recognized a steering wheel and an exhaust pipe and some wheels and tires but the rest looks foreign (alien) to me.  Might have been a seat in there but it wasn't a stamped steel one.  I guess it's tractor of some kind out of a Buck Rogers movie.

 

 

This more your style?

 

 

 

Or maybe 

 

 

 

[Subdeacon Joe]

3 hours ago, Warden Callaway said:

Dad and his first tractor.  I think it is a Farmall 14.  It was on steel wheels but he had it converted to rubber.  My older sister.  Don't think I was born yet. Our house is directly behind him on the hill.

 

 

 

 

 

[Blackwater 53393]

There are multiple lawsuits in nearly every level of state and federal court over this “proprietary” garbage!!

 

In the meantime, there’s also a budding cottage industry to circumvent the “proprietary” stuff!

 

[Warden Callaway]

I've been told that when I was a baby, they would wrap me up in a blanket and prop me up in a high wheel wagon pulled by mules and pick corn by hand. I do remember them picking corn by hand. Probably the corn never left the farm.  It was likely used to feed the hogs and chickens and anything else on the farm.

 

Here is how millions of gallons of diesel goes into making ethanol. 

 

 

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

7 hours ago, Subdeacon Joe said:

 

 

This more your style?

 

 

 

Or maybe 

 

 

 

 

7 hours ago, Subdeacon Joe said:

 

 

This more your style?

 

 

 

Or maybe 

 

 

 

Close, but I'm not quite that old....yet. 

[Cold Lake Kid, SASS # 51474]

I remember my Great Uncle Con and his collection of steam tractors.

Eight or nine if I recall. He would fire one up sometimes and use it on his tobacco farm at Delhi, Ontario

As a very young kid, I remember the steam whistle best!

I think there is some 16 mm film I have here, shot by my Father, of the tractors in operation.

If the film is still good, I should try to get it digitized. 

[Warden Callaway]

1 hour ago, Cold Lake Kid, SASS # 51474 said:

I remember my Great Uncle Con and his collection of steam tractors.

Eight or nine if I recall. He would fire one up sometimes and use it on his tobacco farm at Delhi, Ontario

As a very young kid, I remember the steam whistle best!

I think there is some 16 mm film I have here, shot by my Father, of the tractors in operation.

If the film is still good, I should try to get it digitized. 

 

Uncle Chuck's Case that he ran his sawmill with until his death in his 80s.  Son's sold it.  I have the sawmill in parts.

[Old Man Graybeard]

I farmed most of my life. The newest tractor I had was about a 1978 model. I would have to be schooled on how to run these new tractors and combines. I believe my last combine was a 1980 model.

[Cypress Sun]

 

My best friend "runs" a tractor part time when the crops are in season. The tractor is all computerized and GPS controlled. All he does drive it to the fields, get it in position, let it make it's long/slow run, turn it around at the end of the row and try to stay awake. It's fully climate controlled with a cushy seat and AM/FM/CD. He says the biggest challenge is driving it on the road as it is so wide that he sometimes takes out mailboxes on accident which he calls in and someone comes out an fixes the damage.

 

He sent me pictures of the various tractors he operates. The biggest is almost twice the size of a semi rig and almost as long.

[Stump Water]

17 minutes ago, Cypress Sun said:

My best friend "runs" a tractor part time when the crops are in season. The tractor is all computerized and GPS controlled. All he does drive it to the fields, get it in position, let it make it's long/slow run, turn it around at the end of the row and try to stay awake. It's fully climate controlled with a cushy seat and AM/FM/CD.

 

A former co-worker's husband is a Deere field service tech.  They're in South Dakota.  He said with the GPS plotting they use about 2/3 the fertilizer & seed that they used to because there's no overlap.  Goes a long way towards paying for that six-figure piece of equipment.  Of course in SD they farm on a whole 'nother scale than NC.

 

And he sure was "away at school" a lot.  Seemed like about as much as he was in the field.

 

 

[PowderRiverCowboy]

Thats a 8335  way above most and small farmers will need  and even 10 years old thats a 250k tractor , 

 We just bought a 6175 with a  660 loader, baler and swather  so not cheap 

[Linn Keller, SASS 27332, BOLD 103]

Learned to drive on an Allis-Chalmers WC model with tricycle front end, suicide clutch and hand brakes.

Taught me clutch control at a very tender age: stomp the clutch, pick which gear you wanted, let the clutch out about three feet and STOP.

Let the clutch out another half inch and hesitate, then another quarter inch and she's full engaged.
That good old Allis was our oilfield prime mover, until dear old Dad got a pair of A model John Deere tractors, then a G model.

The first A model John Deere he got, sheared off a bolt on the cam flange: he liked that tractor because he could get into the gear case up to both elbows with a 3/8" drill and drill out that broken off bolt.

My mechanical expertise is still in the points-plugs-and-condenser era. I can set points with a matchbook cover, I can set time with a light, I can change a U-joint on a Dodge pickup ... but these more modern vehicles are (I freely admit!) well beyond my poor and pitiful efforts.

I would be well beyond lost on that new modern John Deere computer mobile.

[Cypress Sun]

1 hour ago, Stump Water said:

 

A former co-worker's husband is a Deere field service tech.  They're in South Dakota.  He said with the GPS plotting they use about 2/3 the fertilizer & seed that they used to because there's no overlap.  Goes a long way towards paying for that six-figure piece of equipment.  Of course in SD they farm on a whole 'nother scale than NC.

 

And he sure was "away at school" a lot.  Seemed like about as much as he was in the field.

 

 

 

He's in Ohio.

[PowderRiverCowboy]

10 hours ago, Stump Water said:

 

A former co-worker's husband is a Deere field service tech.  They're in South Dakota.  He said with the GPS plotting they use about 2/3 the fertilizer & seed that they used to because there's no overlap.  Goes a long way towards paying for that six-figure piece of equipment.  Of course in SD they farm on a whole 'nother scale than NC.

 

And he sure was "away at school" a lot.  Seemed like about as much as he was in the field.

 

 

 Yep we dont farm or ranch on 40-80 acres heck dont see many 400 acres farms here 

[Warden Callaway]

The Jones Boys (now middle age) rent our open ground. Cut hay and pasture cattle. Its amazing to witness the transition.  What took dad weeks with horse drawn equipment and much labor,  take them hours to put up hay. They mow with rotary cutters at almost road speed.  Come right back and rake into wind rows with wide double rake. Follow right behind with round bailer and bail green.  Stuff it in plastic wrap to make "haylage".  They use GPS equipment to spread fertilizer to kept from missing spots or double applying. 

 

 

[irish ike, SASS #43615]

The "bigger" equipment actually saves money on diesel. It cuts the stalks, strips the corn, shells it and spits out cobs and silage. That and the space between rows is now about 1/2  of what it used to be. More bushels/acre on the same land.

 

80 acre farms are now nothing but hobby farms. They've been bought up and turned into 1,000 acre farms. No one raises beef, hogs or chickens. It's all produced on large feed lots.

[Rip Snorter]

Plenty of places here in Montana that raise grass fed free range beef, chickens as well.  It does take a good bit of land and a lot of work.

[Stump Water]

On 4/5/2024 at 2:05 PM, Rip Snorter said:

Plenty of places here in Montana that raise grass fed free range beef, chickens as well.  It does take a good bit of land and a lot of work.

 

Same in NC.  There's been a resurgence of "drug free" farming the past 10-15 years.  

 

One outfit up the road raises Water Buffalo.