Million Dollar Combine - Dave's Midwestern Ohio Memories

Series of Guest Blogs by an out-of-state Fish Report reader originally from this area about fond memories of growing up in Midwestern Ohio during the 50’s & 60’s

Million Dollar Combine

Recently one of the Twitter accounts I follow is from a Ft. Loramie farmer who posted a photo of a new harvester priced at $1.2 million! It was recently introduced by John Deere and is called the Model X9. The farmer imagined what his local banker's reaction would be if he requested a million dollar loan to buy the combine! Let alone his banker, how about his wife?

The specs for this monster are impressive: 830 cubic inch fuel injected engine generating 690 HP, 330 gallon fuel tank, 460 bushel grain bin and a 45’ header that can harvest 100 tons of grain per day! Watch this video to see this huge combine in action.

And look at the comfortable cab in the X9 - nicer than my car!

Although John Deere didn’t invent the harvester, it sure has been mastered by the company. But Deere did invent the steel plow in 1837.

Here’s Deere's latest autonomous tiller.

Cyrus McCormack invented the first harvester in 1831.

Dad owned McCormack combines during his entire farming career spanning 1937-2001. His first was just like this one, a Model 62 that he used for custom combining. In other words, he would subcontract his services to area farmers who didn’t have a combine.

Later he had a model 42 like the one shown in this video.

And here’s a photo of him with his last combine a Model 74 when it was pulled out of the barn for the last time, after having been sold to Ken Luthman in Russia for restoration.

It’s really amazing how dramatic the transformation in farm equipment has evolved over the decades. As Tim the Toolman Taylor would say, “Aaeeuuhh”!

~~~~~~~~

Receive a weekly email whenever there is a new blog post. Just enter your email address in the designated spot below the blog and follow instructions to set up the notification.