Aussie Ken
Member
G"day mates!!!!!
Stan from Florida asked for an update
Yes Stan I am formerly Canadian Ken -but I am still Canadian Ken here as well as there are two of us named Ken in the workshop and that is my nickname here!
Wheat harvest was short and quick due to lack of rainfall and poor yields. Wheat is stored on large piles outside to speed unloading and then tarped. I was at the top of the elevator on site of Graincorp storage facility on Friday replacing a battery in our GPS-Greenstar repeater station -90 plus feet up –took some shots of the area as well as the piles. The wheat is loaded on trucks and transferred to the silos and bins as it is shipped out.
We are busy at the dealership at Goondiwindi - PDI"s on 7760 Cotton Pickers -6 to do for one operation priced at $930,000.00 AU. There are 200 hours scheduled for each machine for all segments of the "repair order" as they call them.
When they are finished, there are other pickers scheduled in for repairs –Cotton pick starts in March.
There a lot of Custom operators here with one or two machines - they are called “contractors” -
Combines are called "headers" here
Combine heads are called "fronts" here
Grain drills are called "combines" here due to the fact they were all hoe drills here where the drill worked the soil and planted the seed at the same time.
We have a new S680 combine on tracks currently used for demos. All combines are equipped with Tier 2 emissions engines, with the option of IT4 -you can see the plastic cap on the rear panel where North American combines exhaust is located for IT4 engines.
The grain heads are all rigid draper models with pickup reels- the new ones are 640RD-40 foot rigid draper.
I have seen only one older auger styled grain head with a batt reel here that was sitting with a 9600 combine.
I have seen a few 7720’s and 8820 combines still working here –a very popular model is the 9770STS
They don"t plant soybeans around here -the guys have never heard of an air reel which is almost standard installed on all grain heads in Canada.
Farms are big here – 3000 acres is small – mostly guys I have talked to operations range from 10000 to 50000 acres.
Chick Peas, Wheat and Canola are their winter grown crops planted in March and harvested in late September –November
Chick Peas are heavily grown here with most being exported to India and Indosesia.
When harvesting Chick Peas, combines are under a huge risk of fire. There is an oily substance on the plant that makes the dust highly flammable. All combines that harvest chick peas have chains attached that contact the ground to lessen the static electricity which can spark fires. Most operators have a stationary engine powered air compressor that is mounted on the front of the combine header cart that travels along to the fields –the combine is blown down every round to reduce dust buildup. One of the techs I work with was riding along last year while harvesting –they had the gull wing doors open on the combine and someone was riding along to watch for fires –the tech said the dust would swirl around and ignite in midair!!! It was crazy to watch. If there is a rain before harvest at the correct time, the oily substance gets washed off and fire risk is a lot less.
Some farmers plant grain sorghum after wheat in late September and harvest in February –with moisture the same plant will develop a second seed cluster that can be reharvested. The sorghum is 2 feet tall here at present. It is planted 40 inches apart and usually planted with a skip row, or 80 inch gap between rows –less plants fighting for little moisture
Cotton is being planted the last few weeks after tilling and “prewetting” the soil –irrigating before planting,–some is 4 inches high already.
The only other tillage I have seen was yesterday -we travelled with our neighbour Merv and his wife Thea here in town to their son John"s "property" -or farm -he was using an offset disc behind a CaseIH 9130 tractor working up soil to plant a grass mix for grazing cattle.
John had been using an old 20 disc, one way disc tiller behind his antique tractors which included 1939 John Deere G which I started and drove around the yard. It had been imported from New Mexico ten years ago, purchased by John in March at an auction here for $17500AU- old cracked tires, older paint, since replaced the manifold, and governor gears -the radiator is the large version. A JD A also sold at the same sale for $11500AU.
John"s got started collecting after his father Merv gave each of his son"s a Lanz bulldog that Merv had purchased to replicate the original tractor his father bought in 1939-which they have found in a museum at Adelaide where the family originally settled.
Merv"s father also purchased a new -narrow front John Deere G in 1949
The Lanz was given in January 2013 to John and since then he has contracted the collecting bug. He is currently looking for copies of tractors that Merv owned over the years as well as others.
The collection includes the G, Lanz Bulldog, IH W30, M, MD, WD9 and a A554 which were assembled in Australia and has the grill of a 460 and the hood and fuel tank of a W6. There are also several Chamberlains -Countryman 6, C670,9G, and a Super 70 -70hp -powered by a 3-71 Detroit diesel engine, hand clutch(on left side), 12 speed trans, 3800 original hours- from the distance it looks like a IH with a WD9 style grille. I had the Super 70 out for a spin high gear top rpm is 1500 rpm - the drive was AWESOME -I just love the Detroit Diesel sound as featured in my Fox choppers cutting corn back in Canada on you tube - there is also a Super 90 model with the same 3-71 engine - hp is boosted to 90. These models had PTO and hydraulics that was supplied by a belt drive Vickers pump/valve/reservoir combination that mounts above the generator. The super 90 had a completely different grille.
John still owns the Phoenix 3300 tractor that Merv bought new in 1984 - fifth one built – built in Western Australia powered by a Mercedes V8 diesel engine -9600 hours on tractor - I have included several pictures -John and his father Merv appear several times.
Ken
Stan from Florida asked for an update
Yes Stan I am formerly Canadian Ken -but I am still Canadian Ken here as well as there are two of us named Ken in the workshop and that is my nickname here!
Wheat harvest was short and quick due to lack of rainfall and poor yields. Wheat is stored on large piles outside to speed unloading and then tarped. I was at the top of the elevator on site of Graincorp storage facility on Friday replacing a battery in our GPS-Greenstar repeater station -90 plus feet up –took some shots of the area as well as the piles. The wheat is loaded on trucks and transferred to the silos and bins as it is shipped out.
We are busy at the dealership at Goondiwindi - PDI"s on 7760 Cotton Pickers -6 to do for one operation priced at $930,000.00 AU. There are 200 hours scheduled for each machine for all segments of the "repair order" as they call them.
When they are finished, there are other pickers scheduled in for repairs –Cotton pick starts in March.
There a lot of Custom operators here with one or two machines - they are called “contractors” -
Combines are called "headers" here
Combine heads are called "fronts" here
Grain drills are called "combines" here due to the fact they were all hoe drills here where the drill worked the soil and planted the seed at the same time.
We have a new S680 combine on tracks currently used for demos. All combines are equipped with Tier 2 emissions engines, with the option of IT4 -you can see the plastic cap on the rear panel where North American combines exhaust is located for IT4 engines.
The grain heads are all rigid draper models with pickup reels- the new ones are 640RD-40 foot rigid draper.
I have seen only one older auger styled grain head with a batt reel here that was sitting with a 9600 combine.
I have seen a few 7720’s and 8820 combines still working here –a very popular model is the 9770STS
They don"t plant soybeans around here -the guys have never heard of an air reel which is almost standard installed on all grain heads in Canada.
Farms are big here – 3000 acres is small – mostly guys I have talked to operations range from 10000 to 50000 acres.
Chick Peas, Wheat and Canola are their winter grown crops planted in March and harvested in late September –November
Chick Peas are heavily grown here with most being exported to India and Indosesia.
When harvesting Chick Peas, combines are under a huge risk of fire. There is an oily substance on the plant that makes the dust highly flammable. All combines that harvest chick peas have chains attached that contact the ground to lessen the static electricity which can spark fires. Most operators have a stationary engine powered air compressor that is mounted on the front of the combine header cart that travels along to the fields –the combine is blown down every round to reduce dust buildup. One of the techs I work with was riding along last year while harvesting –they had the gull wing doors open on the combine and someone was riding along to watch for fires –the tech said the dust would swirl around and ignite in midair!!! It was crazy to watch. If there is a rain before harvest at the correct time, the oily substance gets washed off and fire risk is a lot less.
Some farmers plant grain sorghum after wheat in late September and harvest in February –with moisture the same plant will develop a second seed cluster that can be reharvested. The sorghum is 2 feet tall here at present. It is planted 40 inches apart and usually planted with a skip row, or 80 inch gap between rows –less plants fighting for little moisture
Cotton is being planted the last few weeks after tilling and “prewetting” the soil –irrigating before planting,–some is 4 inches high already.
The only other tillage I have seen was yesterday -we travelled with our neighbour Merv and his wife Thea here in town to their son John"s "property" -or farm -he was using an offset disc behind a CaseIH 9130 tractor working up soil to plant a grass mix for grazing cattle.
John had been using an old 20 disc, one way disc tiller behind his antique tractors which included 1939 John Deere G which I started and drove around the yard. It had been imported from New Mexico ten years ago, purchased by John in March at an auction here for $17500AU- old cracked tires, older paint, since replaced the manifold, and governor gears -the radiator is the large version. A JD A also sold at the same sale for $11500AU.
John"s got started collecting after his father Merv gave each of his son"s a Lanz bulldog that Merv had purchased to replicate the original tractor his father bought in 1939-which they have found in a museum at Adelaide where the family originally settled.
Merv"s father also purchased a new -narrow front John Deere G in 1949
The Lanz was given in January 2013 to John and since then he has contracted the collecting bug. He is currently looking for copies of tractors that Merv owned over the years as well as others.
The collection includes the G, Lanz Bulldog, IH W30, M, MD, WD9 and a A554 which were assembled in Australia and has the grill of a 460 and the hood and fuel tank of a W6. There are also several Chamberlains -Countryman 6, C670,9G, and a Super 70 -70hp -powered by a 3-71 Detroit diesel engine, hand clutch(on left side), 12 speed trans, 3800 original hours- from the distance it looks like a IH with a WD9 style grille. I had the Super 70 out for a spin high gear top rpm is 1500 rpm - the drive was AWESOME -I just love the Detroit Diesel sound as featured in my Fox choppers cutting corn back in Canada on you tube - there is also a Super 90 model with the same 3-71 engine - hp is boosted to 90. These models had PTO and hydraulics that was supplied by a belt drive Vickers pump/valve/reservoir combination that mounts above the generator. The super 90 had a completely different grille.
John still owns the Phoenix 3300 tractor that Merv bought new in 1984 - fifth one built – built in Western Australia powered by a Mercedes V8 diesel engine -9600 hours on tractor - I have included several pictures -John and his father Merv appear several times.
Ken
