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Neal Evison, Samples Farm, Walkington, East Yorkshire. 500 acres tenanted, 780 acres contracted, harvesting wheat, oilseed rape, borage and vining peas.
Combine details: 9680i WTS equipped with 625 (25ft) cutting platform, AutoTrac & HarvestDoc
The WTS is my first ever John Deere combine, and was bought for the 2005 season. Our local dealer introduced the combine to me when the new range was just being launched, and I was looking to replace my previous make. I particularly wanted a machine with wide tyres and the capacity to do over 30 tonnes an hour in a variety of crops, with an assisted steering system and yield mapping, and John Deere offered all of these.
One of the main attractions for me was AutoTrac - we have been using precision farming techniques here for several years, to help us build up a good picture of what our soils are yielding. In addition, we were already using Farmade mapping software, so the HarvestDoc option complements our existing system perfectly.
The great advantage of having AutoTrac on the combine is that we can use the same hardware for Parallel Tracking on our other machines, including three John Deere tractors and a self-propelled sprayer. This means we save on input costs by being more accurate in our applications.
I also had a compressor fitted to run off the engine, for cleaning down the combine, especially between different crops. I’ve always had one on previous machines, as we grow for seed so everything has to be clean as possible.
Even though I’d never driven a John Deere combine before, I started harvesting after a day’s instruction and read the manual as I went along. The automatic harvest settings are a good starting point, and gave me the confidence that the combine would do everything I wanted it to.
After combining well over 1000 acres, I probably averaged around 32 to 33 tonnes an hour overall, and up to 40 tonnes an hour in wheat, with 95 per cent of the straw being chopped. The 11,000 litre tank takes a good full 7 tonnes of grain – I know because I filled it full once and nearly overspilt!
AutoTrac worked extremely well, although it does take some getting used to – it’s difficult at first not to touch the steering wheel, especially in the dark. My trailer drivers thought it was excellent, as they knew if they stayed straight, the combine would too.
Any new equipment will now be bought GreenStar ready to make the most of AutoTrac across all the farm operations. Having used AutoTrac, I can now appreciate the potential of the HarvestSmart automatic feedrate control option – automatic steering allows you to really look at and listen to the combine, and you know it will be working to 100 per cent capacity all the time.
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