9880i STS Hillmaster

Designed specifically for European harvesting conditions, John Deere’s 9880i STS HillMaster rotary combine is one of the most modern, 'intelligent' and productive machines available. It is also the world’s highest capacity self-levelling combine. Kent farmer Fred French bought one of the first machines to be sold in the UK.

"The key advantages of John Deere’s 9880i STS HillMaster are the HarvestSmart automatic feedrate control, the AutoTrac hands-free steering system and the HillMaster self-levelling system," says Fred French, a farming entrepreneur who has expanded his business by more than 250 per cent during the six years, to more than 5000 acres, through contract farming agreements.

Starting out as a tenant on the 400-acre Clements Reach Farm at Meopham in Kent after finishing college in 1985, Fred purchased it seven years later and has been expanding ever since. While other farmers diversified into farm shops, the equine market and property, Fred decided to specialise in what he knew best, namely farming. Since 1992, he has taken on a number of contract agreements within a 16-mile radius, the most recent being the nearby 1600-acre St Clere Estate and the 420-acre Barn End Farm at Wilmington, which brought his total cropped area for 2006/2007 to 5300 acres. In addition to 2200 acres of oilseed rape, which yielded an average of 3.5 tonnes/ha, he also produced an average of 9.6 tonnes/ha of wheat across 3200 acres, the best for several years. He comments:

"Because I had taken on so much extra land for this harvest, I needed to replace a previous make of combine with a higher output machine to work alongside my existing John Deere combines, a 9780 CTS (cylinder tine separation) which has completed five seasons, and a 9880 STS (single tine separation) which has done six. We operate a number of John Deere tractors, including 8520 and 8430 AutoTrac models, a 6920 and a 7710, together with a John Deere 24m trailed sprayer. Having always enjoyed good support from our local dealers, it was natural to buy another John Deere combine."

The John Deere 9880i STS HillMaster which Mr French bought was one of the first such models sold in the UK, and is equipped with a 9.15m John Deere 630R cutting platform. Commenting on the machine’s performance, he says:

"We have to deal with some very steep slopes, but the beauty of the HillMaster system is that it virtually levels the farms off. The combine will automatically maintain its level up to 15 degrees, before a buzzer sounds to let you know that it’s reached its limit. I’ve been seven degrees over that, which means that some of the land here is about one in four.

"With a normal combine, the output would fall off dramatically and grain losses would increase as the grain went towards one side of the cleaning area. The HillMaster system enables us to maintain maximum output with minimal losses. The surprising thing is that you don’t need steep slopes to gain a big advantage in terms of work rate and yield. HillMaster also makes life a lot more comfortable for the operator."

The 9880i HillMaster is also equipped with HarvestSmart, John Deere’s automatic feedrate control system, which Mr French says works "brilliantly", further reducing the demands on the operator and maximising combine productivity.

The system allows the operator to select ‘capacity’ or ‘smart’ modes, and by monitoring a combination of crop load in the threshing cylinder or rotor, grain loss and engine rpm, it continually and automatically adjusts the combine’s ground speed to maximise harvesting capacity or minimise grain loss, while compensating for variations in the crop that are not readily apparent to the operator. This results in more consistent loading of the separator over longer periods and in varying conditions, which reduces overall losses and delivers a higher quality grain sample, while also contributing to greater fuel efficiency.

The combine is also equipped with AutoTrac, John Deere’s satellite-based hands free steering system, which maintains straight line travel without using the steering wheel, except at headlands or around obstacles in the field. Accurate to within 10cm, AutoTrac dramatically reduces the operator’s workload, minimises stress and fatigue during long working days and ensures that the full cutting width is used consistently on every pass, thereby improving overall performance. The system is also particularly useful when harvesting in the dark or in very dusty conditions.

"AutoTrac means that we don’t waste time working out narrow strips. It works consistently well, better than even a good operator could ever achieve, and considerably reduces their workload," says Mr French.

When HarvestSmart is combined with AutoTrac and the established HeaderTrak lateral tilt system, which can be programmed to automatically maintain a preset stubble height and header ground pressure for different crops and conditions, the operator is free to monitor the combine’s overall performance and has complete control over the speed and quality of the harvest.

Powered by a 12.5-litre John Deere PowerTech engine that delivers up to 493hp at 2100 rpm, plus an additional 17hp above the rated power during unloading to maintain full harvesting capacity, the 9880i STS incorporates John Deere’s Hi-Performance single tine separation (STS) rotary technology. This provides major advantages in threshing, separating, material handling and grain savings, even in difficult to separate crops, green and high moisture conditions or weedy fields.

Unlike conventional rotary combine designs that feature a concentric cage throughout the full length of the rotor, the STS uses a Tri-Stream rotor system in which the outer cage becomes progressively larger, allowing the crop mat to expand as it travels through the module. This provides more uniform crop flow, especially in high moisture or high yielding crops, increasing separation capacity by up to 10 per cent and reducing power requirement by up to 20 per cent, thereby saving fuel.

According to Mr. French, the capacity of the 9880i STS HillMaster is 15 to 20 per cent greater than his 9880 STS, achieving a very conservative 400 tonnes of wheat a day and often very much more. Much depends on the variety. Cordial, for example, threshes well and has straw that breaks down to almost nothing, allowing the machine to easily achieve 60 tonnes an hour, compared with 40 to 50 tonnes an hour in Solstice.

This German-made triple-axle unit weighs 10 tonnes unloaded, but leaves less of a footprint than a standard 14-tonne trailer even when carrying a 30-tonne payload. Because it can load an articulated grain lorry in under four minutes, in the field, hauliers love the system. What’s more, Mr French points out that it saves him three tractors, trailers and operators, plus the need to run grain back to the farm store and then reload onto a lorry for transport to the Weald Granary, of which he is a director, nine miles away. That amounts to a huge saving in time, machinery, expense and, equally importantly, manpower, a vital consideration now that good labour has become very difficult to find and expensive to employ.

With 2600 acres and 265 threshing hours under its belt, the John Deere 9880i STS HillMaster has been a model of reliability. The combine is essentially very simple in terms of its mechanical design and apart from one faulty bearing early on in the season, absolutely nothing has gone wrong. Consequently for the 2007/2008 season Mr French will be trading in his two older machines for one of John Deere’s recently-announced S Series models, which will run alongside the 9880i STS HillMaster.