But Armstrong’s efforts in Arizona on behalf of the 9320 would be wasted. As the very first 9320s started down the assembly line, combine production at White ground to a halt. The company declared bankruptcy. But it still had a very desirable asset: a marketable rotary combine.

How did that combine come to be — and what happened to it?

WHY IT MATTERS: This story of harvester research and development, much of which took place in secret here in Canada, shows how even the best ideas can fall victim to quirks of timing and circumstance.

New Holland would be the first to market a rotary combine, the TR70, in 1975 — but all farm machinery brands were working on and/or trying to develop the concept.

After the TR70 debuted, no longer was trying to create a rotary combine just an interesting R&D project for other brands. It became an urgent objective if they were to stay competitive in the harvester marketplace — and the clock was now ticking.

“The whole combine industry changed,” says Doug Voss, a former engineer with White, who worked through that period.

Engineers there had started White’s rotary development project back when the company was known as Cockshutt, long before that brand merged with U.S.-based Oliver and Minneapolis-Moline to form White Farm Equipment in the early 1960s.

“The rotary concept was the brainwave of Don McNeil, who was our chief engineer,” says Herb Hagglund, a former field engineer at White’s Cockshutt facility at Brantford, Ont. “He came from Massey. He and another fellow at Massey — who ended up at International — had tossed the idea around before he came to us at Cockshutt in 1953 or ’54. We started this thing (the rotary development project) in September of 1966.”

Given that IH started a rotary project about the same time, it’s interesting to speculate whether the other engineer from Massey-Harris-Ferguson who went to IH had a hand in that.

The garage band

Once White’s rotary development project was approved, all work on it became top secret — so secret, in fact, the small staff assigned to work on it was moved out of the company’s main engineering facility to a rented workshop. That kept the project as invisible as possible.

“They rented what was originally an Esso service station,” remembers Hagglund. “It had two bays and a bit of an office. We just had the barest of essentials as far as fabrication is concerned. I was in charge of the overall project at that time.”

To help Hagglund, two fabricators and a draftsman were pulled from the main engineering section to make up the team working out of the old service station. A service trailer loaded with tools, used by engineers for field repairs, was hauled up to the garage to give the small crew access to welders and a variety of other essentials.

Although they were essentially working on their own, the team was also getting some R&D support from the Ontario Research Foundation (ORF), which was funded jointly by an industry association and government grants. It helped the small, garage-based research team by doing some testing and development in its lab.

Roy Gullickson, a combine engineer, was recruited away from Massey Ferguson by the ORF to bring expertise in harvester design to its staff. And he was given the job of heading ORF’s efforts on the rotary development project.

“The ORF was involved in a contract with Cockshutt (White) Farm Equipment to take a look the possibilities of having a combine harvester more suited to corn and soybeans, but also suited to cereal grains and oilseeds,” he explains. “That sounded interesting to me.”

To begin evaluating potential rotor designs, long before NH introduced the TR70, Gullickson took a look at the only existing rotary technology on the market at that time, used in stationary corn shellers.

“We bought a small, stationary corn thresher you could drive with the belt pulley of a tractor and you could shovel corn ears into it,” he continues. “The rotor itself was only about six or eight inches in diameter. We did quite a bit of testing on kernel damage and threshing efficiency in a lab that was set up for that purpose in the ORF building.”

Playing by ear

To have corn on hand for testing year-round meant the team members had to leave their workshops, go out into cornfields and hand-pick ears for their stockpile.

“We gathered corn ears in the field,” Gullickson says. “The guys from Cockshutt helped with that and we put the ears into cold storage until we were ready to use them.”

Because he’d contributed so much to the overall project, management at White decided to bring Gullickson into its own fold. He was hired away from the ORF to be a full-time member of the rotary development team.

“Roy worked on the (rotary) concept for about three years before he came to us, and then we moved everything into our own facilities,” Hagglund says. “That became our basic crew: two fabricators, a draftsman, Roy and myself.”

As work continued, accommodations in the old service station were becoming cramped. Development of the rotary moved beyond building and operating stationary test rigs to creating a field-scale prototype.

“We were in touch with Cockshutt all the time and Don McNeil, who was chief engineer and vice-president of engineering at the time,” says Gullickson. “He decided he wanted to do a full-size test rig. We did that at Cockshutt using a conventional harvester. In 1967 we took the cylinder, beater and straw walker out of it.” That prototype became known as the R1.

“We brought up a 535 (combine), which was a production machine,” Hagglund recalls. “We brought it up and stripped it out, took everything out of the inside. All we had left was a frame, drivetrain and engine. We took what Roy came up with, the thresher and separator part, and fabricated it in our shop. We used part of our central engineering facility to make parts.” The new rotary thresher and separation system were then installed into the 535.

But even though the team had to work on the prototype outside of its old service-station workshop, the company still wanted to keep a veil of secrecy over its progress.

“One of the contractors we had to make parts was making the rotor, which was fairly substantial and heavy,” says Hagglund. “He asked us what we were making, and I told him it was a cement mixer.”

To make for a simple installation, the rotor was attached directly to the feeder house. When the header was raised, the rotor tilted in unison with it. The pivot point between the feeder house and rotor was the 535’s existing feeder house mounts. There was no threshing advantage to this arrangement, it just made converting the combine to a rotary thresher a simpler process.

“We tied the corn head to the threshing and separating part,” says Hagglund. “It pivoted on a central pivot. That’s how we got the corn head to move up and down. We took it out into the field in mid-January to do corn.”

“The first rotor was about 24 inches in diameter,” says Gullickson. “It ran from one end of the combine to the other.”

Field goals

By the beginning of January the improvised prototype was ready for its first field trial, after being fitted with a two-row Oliver corn head.

But the team had been working on much more than just moving from a conventional, tangential threshing cylinder to an axial rotary design: the initial R1 prototype also included an entirely new vertical cleaning system. Grain was lifted up inside the combine body and fell through an upward airflow inside a rotating chamber that used centrifugal force to improve cleaning.

“The overall idea was we were trying to make a machine that was cheaper and easier to manufacture, because it had less parts,” Hagglund says. “By going vertical with the cleaning unit, we could harvest uphill, downhill or sidehill without any detriment to the cleaning.”

The method initially used to get material into the rotor was unconventional as well. “We started off with an air fan feeding material from the table to the rotor, but that didn’t work out well,” remembers Gullickson. “But the results doing corn, as I recall, were fairly satisfactory overall. So we decided to do a new combine design with the rotor part of the fixed structure of the combine.”

After the initial work in the field with corn, the engineers decided the second-generation prototype needed to be tested in cereal grains as well. To make the necessary changes to the prototype for that, White rented another, larger building in Brantford, and the small team moved from the old service station to the much bigger accommodations.

“We moved three times in the space of two years,” says Hagglund. “We didn’t allow anybody in unless they definitely had some reason for being there. We tried to keep it as quiet as we could.”

With the changeover to a grain header and the rotor fixed in place so it no longer moved in conjunction with the feeder house, the remodelled prototype, now designated the R1A, was ready for field work by mid-May of 1967. Then the team hit the road to Crystal City, Texas, to start field trials in cereal grains. Oats was the first small grain to be put through it. In 1968 another updated prototype, the R2A, was built on the 535 chassis and field tested.

Once the modified 535 combine had served its purpose as an initial test bed, it was time for a ground-up build to incorporate new and better design elements. Working out of its third rented location, the engineering team created an entirely new combine prototype in 1969. Designated the DE-1, it threshed with a 24-inch diameter rotor, took power from a Chrysler 440, V-8 engine connected to a hydrostatic traction drive and relied on a variable-speed belt to drive the rotor.

“The DE-1 was a totally new concept from the ground up,” says Hagglund. “Everything was built by hand.” By 1970 it was in the field.

The vertical cleaning system was also built into the initial DE-1 prototype, along with the rotary threshing system — but because the vertical cleaning system’s design had so many problems, it was eventually abandoned in favour of a conventional one. “We kept working on it,” says Hagglund. “The big problem with it was to make it adjustable and have it convenient to adjust. Cleaning is a very complicated game.”

Despite the fact the rotary team was making good progress, financial concerns at White necessitated belt-tightening measures that disbanded it in 1971. Both Hagglund and Gullickson left the company as a result. “People went in all different directions,” Hagglund remembers.

Regrouping

About a year later, management at White managed to stabilize the company’s finances and reallocate enough funding to the engineering department to restart the rotary project. But with the original engineers Hagglund and Gullickson gone, replacements had to come from the remaining staff.

Murray Mills was one of those selected to pick up where Hagglund and Gullickson left off. “I was working mostly on the conventional combines at that time,” Mills recalls. “We had the two groups within the combine engineering department, the small group on the rotary, originally, and the full-scale development on the conventional side as well.”

With new hands on the project, the top-secret approach gave way to a more inclusive effort after the restart in the early 1970s. “We started sharing (the work),” says Mills. “The way White’s engineering was at that time was there was an engineer in charge of engines, one in charge of frames and that sort of thing. There would be one engineer in charge of that (rotary) project, but he would have access to engineers in all the other groups.” That meant development of the rotary was now very much the combined efforts of the whole group of engineers.

That group did, however, reap the benefits of the major accomplishments from Hagglund and Gullickson: mainly, how they overcame much of the difficulty encountered in getting tough crop to feed into the rotor properly — a problem that lingered with the other brands’ designs, even after they began commercial production.

The secret to the White design was to add a beater in front of the rotor inlet to accelerate the speed of the crop mat as it came out of the feeder house — a system for which John Deere eventually purchased the patent, Mills says, and continued using a version of it on its combines.

Room for improvements

Once the NH and IH rotary combines hit the market, White’s engineering staff wanted to take a look at those designs, so the company purchased one of the first IH rotary combines and leased a NH to evaluate their performance.

Getting material to feed into the rotor and getting good straw distribution at the back of the combines were two areas where White engineers saw they could improve over those designs. Fortunately, they already knew how to get tough crop to feed in, thanks to Hagglund and Gullickson.

“Probably the two biggest things were the feeding and then the discharge from the rear end to make sure you get even distribution,” says Mills. “We changed the shape of the discharge at the back to get a decent spread of the material.”

The White engineers “developed a computer model and did a lot of work on the design of the rotor,” he says. “They were trying to move material with the rotor rather than with the guide vanes. It was almost like an auger, moving material with the rotor. That was never very satisfactory in a lot of crops. It was when they developed the guide vanes that things really started to look good. The original rotor looked like an auger with threshing elements on it.”

The computer modelling and the evaluations of competitors’ machines provided new insight for refinements to the rotor design.

“When New Holland introduced their rotary, it changed the direction we were going in, substantially,” says Voss. “We were working on an auger-flighting concept for a rotor. NH introduced longitudinal-type elements on the rotor and helical guide vanes.” The team at White realized it had to go in a similar direction as well.

With the final engineering obstacles overcome on the rotor, engineers were getting close to a marketable design — and that pleased White’s management, who saw rotaries as the way of the future. Even though a large, conventional prototype combine with a 60-inch cylinder, the model 9800, was nearly ready for production, management decided to abandon it. The weight of importance had shifted from conventional combine development to rotary.

“The decision was made to go with the rotary rather than a big conventional,” Mills remembers. “That basically stopped all development work on the big conventional under development at the time, because it was thought at that time that (the rotary) was the way things were going to go.”

“The original objective of the (rotary) project was to come up with a high-capacity combine, using technology that was different than what had been in use at that time.” adds Voss. “As a result it was a very demanding and huge project.”

Conventional cleaning

Another of the engineering casualties was the vertical cleaning system pioneered by Hagglund and Gullickson. “They had the idea they could go rotary on everything,” says Mills. “The cleaning system they were using was basically rotary as well. It was a vertical drum that was rotating. They tried to use centrifugal force to separate out the chaff. You could develop it to work well in one crop. The problem was, you couldn’t adjust it to change between crops. Screens on the vertical sections had to be changed. You couldn’t use the same screens in corn and wheat.”

So, the first White rotary combine would have to borrow its cleaning system design from the conventional models.

“There was a lot of energy expended on developing the new cleaning system,” recalls Voss. “We had to stop that when NH came out with the TR70. In hindsight, I think it slowed down the rotary development. It was too large a task for the number of people involved and the size of the department.

The first high-capacity prototype to be built using the modified rotor design combined with a conventional cleaning system was the HC-1. The rotor in the HC-1 was larger than previous prototypes, it grew to 80 cm in diameter and its length was extended. It was also the first prototype to use a rotor incorporating guide vane technology.

After further refinements, the HC-1 prototype morphed into the HC-2, which became the production version of the 9700. There were other HC prototypes as well. The HC-4 would become the smaller-framed 9320.

When all the research work was done and the threshing system design was market-ready, White originally intended to create three different-sized, self-propelled machines. The largest model, the class VI, 9700, would be built with the 80-cm, long-length rotor. A mid-sized, class-V 9400 (which was to get the designation 9520 for production) would get a smaller-diameter rotor the same length as the 9700s. And the 9100 (which would form the basis of the production 9320) was to get a shorter, 70-cm diameter rotor.

“We built two or three 9400s,” says Mills. “They were built experimentally but never put into production. There was nothing significant about it (in performance over the 9320) to give it any advantage. It shared the same body as the 9320. The 9320 was the simplest design. It had the fewest drive assemblies.”

Concluded and rebooted

In 1979 White began rotary combine production in Brantford, starting with the 9700. After some initial “clean-up” refinements, the 9700 was renumbered the 9720 in 1984.

But the financial situation for farm machinery manufacturers had become very difficult by the end of the 1970s. Low commodity prices and declining farm incomes in North America led to a sudden and significant drop in demand for combines.

White was placed in bankruptcy protection in September of 1980 and ceased operations five years later. The very first 9320s were just starting down the assembly line the day production was stopped.

Massey Ferguson purchased the White rotary designs from the bankruptcy receiver, giving it ownership of all the completed 9720s, any incomplete models on the assembly line including the 9320s, the parts stores and all the tooling required to build them.

Production of the 9700s then moved across Brantford to the MF facility. The 9320 Whites eventually made it all the way down the assembly line there wearing MF 8560 decals, while the larger 9700s were rebadged as the MF 8590.

Eleven years after serious engineering work began on creating a rotary combine at White, engineers finally saw their efforts begin to pay off with the model 9700s, which had the largest capacity of any rotary machine on the North American market when they entered production in 1979.

Unfortunately, the company would not last long enough to gain the full benefit of the efforts its engineers put into creating the new machines.

“For its time, the 9700 was a good combine,” Voss says. “It kind of pioneered the high-capacity direction machines have been forced to go in.”

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Hesston by Massey Ferguson launched its new double small square baler on the show floor at a media event immediately after the show doors opened. The SB.1436DB produces two rows of bales per field pass and is clearly aimed at maximizing productivity.

The new baler features an advanced electronic monitoring and control system called, SimplEbale. It automates critical baling processes to ensure consistent bale density, weight and dimensions. From inside the cab, operators can monitor flake thickness, flake count, bale length and bale weight in real time, ensuring maximum throughput.

“With its heavy-duty design and groundbreaking technology, this baler helps operators achieve better efficiency and superior results, reducing costs while increasing profitability,” said Dane Mosel, marketing manager for Hesston by Massey Ferguson, in a press release.

Also unveiled at the show was a new Farmall C series tractor from Case IH.

The new Farmall C lineup offers a 12-speed PowerShuttle and 24-speed Hi-Lo transmission, reinforced front axle, boosted hydraulic flow, heavier gross vehicle weight and increased rear lift capacity.

“The new Farmall C not only offers heavy-duty performance and maneuverability, it delivers an improved operator experience,” said Leo Bose customer segmentation lead at Case IH, in a press release. “With the new brake to clutch feature, greater visibility, and the new L635 loader, operators can enjoy significantly increased comfort and reduced fatigue.”

There was a lot to see and do at the show so check out the video below of some of the day’s events on the show floor.

Watch for new videos to find out more about the new baler from Massey Ferguson and Case IH’s new Farmall tractor coming soon to AgDealerTV.

Organized by Kentucky Venues and recognized around the world as a premier farm trade show event, the National Farm Machinery Show welcomes as many as 300,000 visitors from across the U.S. and many other countries each year.

The post New Massey Ferguson baler, Farmall tractor unveiled at 2025 National Farm Machinery Show appeared first on Farmtario.

Advantage Farm Equipment said in a release this strategic expansion complements the launch of IDEAL combines and Momentum planters in 2024, reinforcing its “dedication to providing farmers and agricultural professionals with innovative, high-performance equipment to meet their diverse needs.”

Advantage Farm Equipment said it Fendt and Massey Ferguson brands are renowned for their quality, efficiency and advanced technology, “making them an ideal choice for for today’s farmers who demand the best in crop care solutions.”

Ben McNally, sales manager at Advantage Farm Equipment said “our goal at Advantage Farm Equipment is to provide our customers with the best equipment available to enhance their farming operations.”

In addition to the new equipment offerings, Advantage Farm Equipment said in the release it continues to provide exceptional customer service, expert advice, and comprehensive support to ensure a seamless experience for every customer.

The full AGCO lineup, including the new Fendt and Massey Ferguson sprayers, is now available at Advantage Farm Equipment. For more information or to schedule a demonstration, visit  www.advantage-equip.com or tel: (519) 845-3346.

Advantage Farm Equipment has three locations in Wyoming, London, and Essex, serving the counties of Elgin, Essex, Chatham-Kent, Lambton, and Middlesex.

The post Advantage Farm Equipment completes full AGCO lineup with Fendt and Massey Ferguson Sprayers appeared first on Farmtario.

They also make impressive headlines and brand announcements.

But even though several concept, prototype and even a few production machines have appeared on the scene, nearly all producers will still be sitting in their tractor cabs to get next spring’s crop in the ground.

There seems to be unanimous agreement among executives at major brands that there is still a lot of work to do before most farmers can spend their days in the farm office rather than the cab.

During an ag equipment intelligence briefing webinar in December, senior executives from four major companies discussed their views on automation and autonomy. Most agree that the road to full autonomy will involve gradually automating all the processes farm machines do while keeping an operator in the cab.

“We talk about full autonomy so much and so fluently, but the automation of (individual) processes is building blocks along the way until it’s really the whole moon shot,” said Kurt Coffey, Case IH vice-president for North America.

“I know there are generations coming in machine operation and scale that require full autonomy; if not full autonomy, then leader-follower, one machine (being operated by a person) and three following,” he said.

“To me it’s going to be a race to integrate sophisticated tech into existing platforms.”

Agco’s Brad Arnold, vice-president for Massey Ferguson in North America, agreed. He said that for his company, one of the main efforts is to provide retrofit solutions that allow producers to incorporate technology and automation into late-model machines.

“With the acquisition of Precision Planting six years ago, we really brought on this retrofit first mindset,” he said.

“We added Headsight so we had some automation for combines and the capability to further automate combines from a retrofit perspective. Appareo similarly addresses the retrofit opportunity with seeders, sprayers, spreaders, and JCA with the tech stack for autonomy.

“We’re excited to take a full automation to autonomy approach from a retrofit perspective as we bring all of these technologies together, and once we close on the Trimble JV (joint venture) to start to bring that technology into the portfolio as well.”

In November Agco announced it had entered a “transformational joint venture with Trimble, which creates an industry leading global mixed-fleet precision ag platform.”

At John Deere, there is a three-pronged focus on building an offering of fully autonomous machines and improving production data quality and usability for producers.

“I look at our future and the trends, and there are three big buckets,” said Denver Caldwell, vice-president of sales for Canada and the United States.

“They’re the pillars of our multi-year, multi-cycle strategy, first of which is automation to autonomy. There are things we can do to automate certain functions along the way to (full autonomy) to make our producers’ lives easier.

“We’ve come a long way since our first release of an (autonomous) tillage tractor in 2022, and we’ll keep going down that path to autonomy. We’ll be using automation and autonomy prep packages to get there.

“The second is anywhere management, using the John Deere Operations Centre and having data at hand. Whether it’s autonomy, logistics or implement (data), we have to be able to enable that on a broader scale.

“(Customers) are telling us it’s not just about the people in the field, it’s also about the people in the office and the people supporting the entire operation. They need that capability around anywhere management.

“The third pillar is insights to intelligence. How do we take all these ‘whats’ and distill them down to a ‘so what?’ Is it a difference that makes a difference in their lives? And if it is, what do I do about it? If we can do a better job on this, on the analytics so people can do a better job, that’s insights to intelligence.”

At Kubota, a primary focus is also on automating processes toward full autonomy. President Todd Stucke said such effort will improve the labour situation in both the agricultural and small construction sectors.

“If we can make an everyday operator as good as the best operator,” he said, “then we have a larger pool of labour. If we can automate tractors, we can solve some of the labour issues we have. It’s really making technology useful and integrating it into our equipment.”

All this technology isn’t just something brands want to build into machines. The demand is being driven by customers, according to John Schmeiser, chief operating officer and president of the North American Equipment Dealers Association, which represent ag equipment dealers across Canada and the U.S.

“It is our customers that are requesting these new efficiencies and sophistication,” he said.

The manufacturer executives agree that customer demand drives the increasingly sophisticated solutions they are developing.

“One of the things we’ve been doing here at Grand Island, (Nebraska), is going deep with our customer panel on our automation features on combines,” Coffey said during the webinar.

“People are saying, ‘I’m buying that combine because it has 20 per cent more efficiency in a varying field with an unskilled operator.’ We’ve made a lot of (tech) acquisitions in the last few years. It’s along the way to full autonomy. It exciting to see where we’re at and where we’re headed.”

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Day two of the NFMS saw Massey Ferguson debut its 500R sprayer to attendees, and New Holland was eager to show how its latest collaboration helps guide all of your harvested grains into a grain cart.

Heath Kehnemund, marketing product specialist with Massey Ferguson, says the company’s 500R sprayer is designed for ease of operation and requires less maintenance.

“One of the things that we do differently than a lot of our competitors on the market is we have a LiquidLogic system…” said Kehnemund, “at the end of the day if you get blown out or rained out we can actually bring that product back to the tank to be able to go out and spray the next day.”

To help keep problem areas to a minimum, greaseless bushings are standard on the 500R and the cab interior takes a common look-and-feel approach for operators.

“It’s a common cab across a lot of our platforms,” said Kehnemund, “A guy can go from one machine to another and be very comfortable.”

Automation ‘Raven’ swoops in

A second new announcement at the show for New Holland was its collaboration with Raven Industries for Raven Cart Automation.

The new automated system reduces operator error during the handoff of grain between a combine operator and a tractor operator during harvest.

“With the system set up, you have reduced chances of impact, reduced chances of grain spillage, reduced chances of operator error as a whole” said Nick Mortensen, technology marketing manager for New Holland.

Raven Cart Automation works via local radio frequency which provides no delay in connection between the combine and a tractor. The system also allows combine operators to call up to six grain carts at a time in order to keep things moving smoothly in the field.

Want to hear more? Watch for upcoming videos of the Massey Ferguson 500R sprayer and the New Holland Raven Cart Automation system coming soon to AgDealerTV.

The post New Massey Sprayer comes to NFMS, combines and grain carts get synchronized appeared first on Farmtario.

As the 1980s began, the evolution toward fewer but larger farms had taken hold. That meant farmers were now buying fewer but larger machines.

Many executives in the industry, and especially at MF, failed to recognize this change early on.

Added to that was a world-wide recession and record high interest rates, along with low commodity prices for farmers.

The impact was inevitable.

Overall combine sales reported by all brands in the U.S. in 1979 amounted to 32,246 but by the end of 1985, those numbers fell an astonishing 74 per cent to just 8,402. By then, sales numbers for the domestic market in Canada weren’t much better, nor were they anywhere else in the world.

By 1984, MF losses since 1977 exceeded $1.4 billion, and it had bank debts in 1980 of $1.6 billion.

In a 1984 speech, Victor Rice, MF’s then chair and CEO, said: “We went back to square one and asked ourselves: are we manufacturers? Are we marketers? Are we deal-makers? In the end, we decided we are marketers first.”

It was clear MF no longer believed it had to build the machines it sold.

The company was bleeding red ink, and things had to change quickly. The creation of Massey Combines Corp in 1985 was a big part of the effort to stop the hemorrhage.

In 1985, Massey Ferguson reorganized itself into a number of divisions, and sold off its combine business, including the Brantford plant.

To do that, it created an independent company called Massey Combines Corp (MCC) and gave it all the MF combine operations. In doing so, MF eliminated its largest money-losing venture and shed a large portion of its debt.

“A renewed company has emerged, poised for greater profitability, determined to create value for shareholders.”

That quotation was emblazoned across the cover of Massey-Ferguson’s 1985 annual report. But whether the extensive reorganization would lead to greater value for shareholders remained to be seen. One thing seemed certain, though. MCC, which was created to accommodate the renewed company structure, faced a tough go of it.

Dick Brown, MCC’s vice-president, put forward an optimistic face. He said during a media interview in 1986 that he expected combine sales in the U.S. to rebound to around 21,000 units.

It didn’t.

From the start, MCC had a staggering debt load. MF had pared off assets worth about $296 million to create the new company, but along with that it transferred over $206 million in long-term debt.

MF retained a $32.2 million stake in the new company, allowing it to profit in the unlikely event that MCC actually made money.

But despite the economic difficulties that the Brantford combine production faced in the 1980s, some exciting research projects were underway. Before the creation of MCC, MF’s rotary combine project, the TX900 that was initially proposed in 1976, was still progressing and MF had gone back to work on its conventional models, too.

Starting in 1980, the TX800 project began, which was devoted to developing an entirely new conventional combine. The plan was to create a line consisting of four models designated TX801 to 804. These machines would have cylinder widths of 40, 50, 60 and 70 inches, respectively. And they would incorporate several new design elements over the previous 800-series machines.

The TX800 prototypes were hand built in the Harvesting Engineering Centre in Toronto and sent to Nebraska for field trials. They still bore some resemblance to the earlier 800-series models, but the cab had a new shape, as did the engine compartment.

Under the sheet metal there were other major changes. The new look around the engine compartment incorporated a redesigned air intake arrangement. The new combines would use 1000 Series Perkins diesel engines and a higher-performance drive train.

The drive train upgrades included a hydrostatic transmission with a high-capacity pump that was connected to a belt-driven, torque-sensing traction drive system.

At the same time, the rotary TX900 project was continuing, and it had been under development for much longer than the TX800.

Initially, the plan was to include three models in the TX900-series, the 901, 902 and 903. The 903, with its 27-inch rotor, was seen as the potential replacement for the 750 and was the main focus of initial engineering efforts.

One of the most innovative features on the 900 machines was to be incorporation of a load-sensing hydraulic system for the threshing rotor. It was intended to use hydraulics to maintain the correct concave setting to accommodate varying load rates and prevent plugging.

The 903 and 904 designs, though, hadn’t proven to be everything hoped for. They were prone to an unacceptable fore-aft pitching problem so significant design changes had to be made.

And engineering department estimates forecast that development costs in 1981 would reach $3.453 million. Testing on the 904 was originally expected to last until 1984 with the 903 completed in 1985.

Eventually, financial considerations would result in the both the TX900 and TX800 projects being dropped in 1985. But this time it wasn’t just MF’s financial problems that were the cause. It was White Farm Equipment’s bankruptcy, another victim of the farm-economy crisis.

Coincidently, White Farm Equipment was building a rotary combine in Brantford, too. To disperse the company’s assets, the receiver handling White’s bankruptcy offered to sell the White rotary combine to MF, before it splintered off the Brantford plant to MCC.

Management at MF decided it would be more cost efficient to buy the White design and put that into immediate production than continue developing its own.

Faced with all that, the TX900 project was dropped; and at the same time, so was the new conventional TX800.

MF was putting all of its combine eggs in one basket, the White rotary.

For a while, MF even marketed some White 9720 rotary machines with both WFE and MF decals on the side. Boasting that they now owned the White combine was a key part of the company’s initial advertising. And the 9720 was a giant for its time, powered by a 10.5-litre Perkins V-8, it had a 31.5-inch diameter rotor.

Eventually the dual badging of WFE and MF on the 9720 would end, and MF developed modified versions of the smaller White models that they numbered 8560 and 8570.

Production of the White rotaries continued at Brantford under MCC ownership, but by 1988, MCC had accumulated debt worth $90 million more than its estimated asset value. It was bankrupt.

After MCC failed, the White-based combine technology was put on the open market again. It was bought by Vicon, a Scandinavian company that had a small manufacturing plant in Portage la Prairie, Man.

Vicon had been manufacturing implements there, which were marketed by Canadian Cooperative Implements Ltd. It then sold the combine line to auto parts manufacturer Linamar, which had been supplying production parts.

MF stepped up and bought back the conventional combine business for the bargain price of $8 million from the bankruptcy receiver. That included plant tooling and inventory, but not the Brantford plant itself. This allowed MF to take back the lucrative parts business for the existing conventional combines already in service.

As for the Brantford plant, after nearly 175,000 conventional combines went down the assembly line, along with a much smaller number of rotaries, it closed and it would never again see combine production.

Brantford was a plant built to include room for expanding production and upgrades in technology, and was meant to last well into the future. A.A. Thornbrough, MF’s president who proudly posed for photos with dozens of dignitaries on opening day in 1964, probably could not have imagined his flagship factory would have a life of barely 24 years.

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Whenever a brand develops a new machine concept or model, the prototype is put through a rigorous field testing process, accumulating as many working hours as possible in the shortest amount of time. That is how engineers ensure the design is ready for production and delivery to dealers for sale.

During the 1970s, Massey Ferguson engineers were busy turning out a wide variety of concepts for testing, and some field engineers had a reputation for being unconventional in their methods. An infamous story among the ranks of engineers at MF during that era was about an engineer from the company’s early days who particularly embodied that attitude.

This particular engineer, with his crew, was working out of an airport hangar while field testing a combine. The engineer decided the machine needed to be bigger, so the team put it in the hangar and cut it in half to widen it.

Myth or reality, it was widely circulated among the MF engineers at the time.

That same pioneering attitude was reflected in some of the projects on the drawing boards at MF in the 1970s. A prototype 700-series machine was created that used a tandem-axle drive system, the same as a road grader; and another looked at the efficiencies to be gained by using two smaller, six-cylinder engines rather than one large motor. One would power the threshing mechanism while the other drove the machine. From a marketing perspective, it had little chance of success, but it did see field testing.

Other manufacturers were also developing concept machines and new components. They all used farmers and custom operators to test their machines, often in the same part of the country.

Sometimes MF’s engineers would find themselves staying in the same motels with other companies’ engineers while they each worked on their own secret projects. Finding out what the competition was up to was the sideline activity of engineers from all companies. Word would eventually get around about who was doing what in the area.

On one occasion in Arkansas, a group of MF engineers heard about John Deere’s engineers working in the same area. One Sunday morning, they hired a man who had the local accent and a pickup truck. Massey engineers always drove white pickups and Deere engineers knew it.

This fellow had an old beat-up truck with a dog in the back. With three of MF’s engineers riding along, the local man drove into the yard where Deere’s test machines were sitting and struck up a conversation.

The MF engineers didn’t open their mouths for fear their accents would give them away. The Deere engineers were working on a cutter bar with broken pieces all over the place. As they nonchalantly wandered around, the engineers watched the Deere people struggle through a repair. Then they left, apparently leaving the Deere engineers unaware of the spying.

But turnabout is fair play. Despite the fact that MF, too, tried to keep its test machines well hidden from onlookers, it wasn’t always successful.

In the days before digital photography, the Polaroid camera was the easiest way to get quick pictures. When MF’s engineers came out in the mornings and found the white strips of paper from Polaroid pictures, they knew the competition had been looking around the night before.

The crew of the MF “Harvest Brigade” that followed the custom harvesters on the annual route from Texas to Canada, and supported them with parts and service, didn’t focus on using them to test machines. Other engineers did.

Getting a custom cutter to put a lot of hours on prototypes was critical in perfecting the design of new combines for all manufacturers. That was the only way engineers could put several years’ worth of work on a machine in just a few months.

On one important occasion that arrangement worked to the advantage of both MF and the cutter.

MF had given some 760 models to a custom cutter, but he wasn’t interested in using them. Although the cutter only had to supply the fuel and operators to use them, the combines were sitting idle.

MF staff decided to collect their machines and give them to another custom operator in the area. Sam Wiggins, who had been struggling with some older 510 combines, took advantage of the MF offer to use the 760s.

Wiggins parked his own machines and ran the 760s non-stop. The next year, when the 760 went into production, Wiggins bought a large fleet of them. He went on to become the biggest custom cutter in that area, thanks in large part to the use of those original 760s. That started a long-term relationship between Wiggins and the MF engineering staff, who went back to him year after year for testing.

In the next instalment we’ll focus on MF’s development of a rotary model and the beginning of the end for the Brantford assembly plant and MF’s entire combine manufacturing days.

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Massey Ferguson has launched its long-awaited 9S tractor, bringing the latest design to a high-horsepower offering from the company.

The 9S tractors replace the 8700 S line for Massey Ferguson and bring increased power and strength to the tractor lineup. It was launched at the Agritechnica machinery show in Hannover, Germany in mid-November.

There will be six tractors in the 9S lineup ranging from 285 to 425 horsepower, says Matthieu Huitorel, a sales support specialist with Massey Ferguson.

Power will be provided by the 8.34 litre, six-cylinder Agcopower engine, but it has been simplified with the EGR valves removed and there is only one turbo. The only transmission available will be the Dyna-VT transmission, a continuously variable transmission that includes an automatic mode.

The Massey Ferguson 9S follows the styling cues and the priorities of the 8S tractor before it, including the distinctive Protect-U design that keeps 18 cm between the cab and the engine enclosure and improves visibility and operator comfort.

Cab visibility is also improved by the fact that the exhaust treatment system is under the cab floor and the exhaust pipe is placed flush against one of the posts of the cab.

“We want it to be the best front visibility in the market,” says Huitorel.

The technology in the cab from the 8700 series was maintained, but other technology options have been added including MF autoturn, which automates headland turning. GPS guidance from Trimble is standard. Trimble recently entered a joint venture with AGCO.

“We are close to being a totally autonomous tractor, meaning the farmer just has to focus on implement setting and let the tractor look after the other tasks for the day.”

Two load-sensing hydraulic pumps help provide flow up to 340 litres per minute, and it has an ecomode that pumps the oil at lower engine revolutions per minute (RPM). There are six hydraulic outlets, including one larger outlet, to serve the needs of higher flow implements such as planters and seeders.

The chassis is mostly the same as the 8700 series, other than the reinforcing of the rear axle to help manage the higher horsepower. The 8700 S series hit a maximum of 400 horsepower. The 9S tractor can manage a wide range of weights, based on the use by the farm.

“We can go from 11 tonnes up to 18 tonnes weight so farmers can adjust to their needs,” says Huitorel.

There is also a new light package on the tractor with 27 lights, providing 360-degree lighting around the machine.

There will be numerous options available on the tractor, including a central tire inflation system and an air system that will allow for high-pressure air for tractor cleaning and other uses at the front and rear of the tractor.

The 9S will be Massey’s global high-horsepower tractor. It will be launched first in Europe by next September and then will flow out to the rest of the world.

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The early 1970s were good to Massey-Ferguson’s shareholders, and the Brantford combine plant was working flat out to meet demand for its combines. The 410 and 510 had catapulted MF to the front of the pack when it came to combine sales in North America.

In its 1975 annual report, Massey Ferguson said the previous five years (1971-1975) saw “unprecedented growth in the farm machinery industry. For Massey-Ferguson, demand in most markets exceeded production capacity in three of the five years.”

But despite its success with the 10-series models, MF’s combine engineers weren’t sitting on their hands. By as early as 1967, work had started on yet another line of conventional combines that would replace the 410 and 510.

The 410 saw its last year of production in 1972, and shortly before the last 410 was built, in 1971, MF brought a new combine to the market: the 760.

The 760 boasted a 60-inch cylinder, making it by far the largest combine MF had ever offered. It was powered by a Perkins 354 cubic inch engine, and its 180-bushel grain tank allowed longer periods between unloading.

One of the features MF introduced on the 760 was a series of five paddle elevators that replaced the feeder chain and moved grain from the table to the cylinder, a unique option offered only on MF machines at that time. It helped even out the material before it entered the threshing cylinder, which improved efficiency and capacity.

Although the control arrangement inside the cab was similar to that on previous models, the cab offered a better working environment, with air conditioning available.

The Brantford plant came into existence in part due to the Second World War. The shortage of equipment and manpower to harvest grain across the North American plains during that conflict was a pressing problem, leading to the creation of a free trade agreement for farm machinery between Canada and the U.S.

With that free movement of equipment across the border, the Harvest Brigade was established. It followed threshing crews northward from Texas to Canada to harvest crops with Canadian-built Massey-Harris combines.

By the 1970s, MF was still actively involved in supporting custom harvesters, which by then had become a fixture in North American agriculture. But now MF wasn’t alone in that support. Most major manufacturers were making the annual migration northward in support of the many custom cutters who used their machines.

“It really was a mobile service and support entity,” said Kerry English, an MF engineer who started working with the brigade in 1974.”It started in Texas in the middle of May, in Wichita Falls.”

Why Wichita?

“It had an airport there, allowing the flying-in of people and parts,” he explains. After the harvest began, any required parts were flown in from the Dallas, Texas, parts distribution warehouse until the brigade had moved too far north.

Then parts were accessed from Denver, Colorado, and flown to other airports nearer the brigade’s location.

The brigade came under MF’s product integrity department. Engineers from various sections participated on a rotating basis, spending two weeks on the road and then being relieved by others.

“It was labour intensive,” recalled English. After returning home exhausted from nearly non-stop activity, he remembers feeling he didn’t want to ever go back, but that sentiment always seemed to fade.

“It gets in your blood,” he said. And engineers often looked forward to another tour of duty.

Keeping a fleet of roughly 300 MF combines belonging to about 50 custom cutters, who worked continuously, created a sense of accomplishment for members of MF’s support staff, and providing support to custom operators was good for MF’s engineers.

“The brigade was an exceptionally good vehicle for monitoring the performance of new machines,” says English. “But it was hard work.”

He remembered it wasn’t unusual to work through all hours of the day on emergency repair operations. And when the weather was good, only bad weather stopped the combines.

“I remember a cutter came to the trailer one particularly dry year, and they hadn’t had a day off in 43 days. They were hoping for some rain to give the crews a break,” he said.

And if the cutters didn’t get a break, neither did the MF engineers.

MF’s brigade program was primarily geared toward new combines still on warranty. But the engineers helped whenever they could, even with older machines. Relying just on existing dealers wouldn’t have been practical for most custom cutters.

“Few dealers in those areas were structured to have the support and parts to handle them,” said English.

Many smaller community dealers would have been overwhelmed by the demand for parts and service when a large group of cutters invaded the countryside around them.

“No dealer could afford to have that inventory for the two weeks the cutters were around,” said English. “The brigade route often planned stops in areas where dealer support was weak to help alleviate the problem.

“Cutters used to say that if it hadn’t been for the harvest brigade, they would have used some other brand,” English recalls.

So, maintaining its presence on the brigade trail was critical to MF’s domination of combine sales. And although other manufacturers had their own version of the harvest brigade, they failed to recognize its importance to sales as early as MF did.

At the start of each season, MF would publish a brochure outlining the route of the harvest brigade service group for the year. Although it was firmly established, the timetable was not. When the custom cutters moved north, so did MF’s support team, and that movement depended primarily on the weather. The team had a semi-trailer truck stocked with about 2,000 combine parts.

“We took everything we thought we’d need,” says English. “Usually, the team had the parts on hand for repairs, but occasionally they would have to order others in. To fan out and cover the widest possible area, an engineer in another vehicle would follow a parallel route northward.

“There was a van in addition to the semi-trailer,” he said. “We used to call it the satellite. It would follow a slightly different route and it ended up in Great Falls, Montana at the end of the season. The main team of engineers would finish up in Mandan, North Dakota.”

The 1970s was a turbulent decade. The oil crisis, high interest rates and falling farm commodity prices were clouds that loomed on the horizon for the Brantford plant and MF — and everyone involved in agriculture.

Nevertheless, MF’s gross sales had risen from $1.192 billion in 1972 to $2.925 billion in 1976. Net income had been rising too, increasing nearly fourfold during the same period. But then things began to change.

Barely two years later, in 1978, MF’s net income had fallen off a cliff. The company lost $257 million and its debt was climbing, which was eating through MF’s working capital at a record pace. It fell by nearly half from the beginning of 1977 to the end of 1978.

Massey also shed nearly 10,000 people from its workforce during the same period. The financial storm had started, and the Brantford combine plant was squarely in the middle of it.

Combines accounted for 12 per cent of MF’s sales, but U.S. figures for combine sales were showing rapid decline — much faster, in fact, than tractor sales, which were also falling.

In the U.K., MF was increasing market share but falling farm commodity prices meant overall sales figures for combines were way down.

Canadian sales figures were the one bright spot for combines through to the end of the decade, but this was not a large enough market to sustain production levels at the Brantford plant. Worldwide, combine sales were falling faster than any other MF product.

At the close of the decade, despite a worsening financial situation, MF was still ready to keep pace with the competition. The 700-series combines were due to be replaced by updated versions, the 850 and 860 models, which would hit the market in 1981.

And since 1978, MF’s engineers had been busy working on the TX900 project, a new machine that represented a radical change from MF combines of the past: a rotary combine.

The post Supporting the Harvest Brigade appeared first on Farmtario.

It’s the next tractor for Massey Ferguson with the unique 18 cm gap between the cab and the engine, which makes it more conformable for the operator and with better sight lines.

It’s also new highest horsepower tractor available from Massey Ferguson at 425 maximum horsepower. Five other versions of the 9S will step down in horsepower to a low of 285.

The tractor is engineered for flexibility, with a significant range of weight that can be added to the tractor depending on use, and all the latest automation, including automated headland turning.

The tractor will first be available in Europe and then at points after that in the rest of the world.

Precision conditioning for hay?

Also in the AGCO area, Fendt has created a way to change the conditioning level as a mower is cutting through a hay field. I well remember a hay crop where most of it was ready to go, but one area with more biomass was not. I fed those bales first, but it was not optimal.

The new Fendt adjustable conditioner will have three ways to evaluate when the conditioner should be changed. A farmer will be able to alter it from the cab, or it can be automated, either from a satellite evaluation of biomass used to create field map, or from sensors on the mower. From a complexity perspective, a quick control from the cab would make the most sense to me.

Automation options developing, but slowly

There are many agriculture companies dabbling in automation, artificial intelligence, or both. AI, especially I think is losing its precisions and is being applied to anything with advanced computer processing. That also means the technology is becoming more prevalent.

The newest forms of autonomous units, shown at Agritechnica, are coming from companies not involved in making tractors today, including Kuhn and various startups ranging from Naio to Robotti to AgXeed, which might be the most market-ready autonomy product out there, with sales already to 20 countries, including Canada.

The vanguard of autonomy in horticulture, with the most market-ready advances being adopted in fruits and vegetables. There are a couple of reasons for this, including labour being so important and so difficult to find in fruit and vegetable production. There are also standardized production areas in fruit and vegetable – trees and vineyards are planted to exact specifications.

There are lots of companies buzzing around agriculture looking for how they can join the rush to agriculture automation and artificial intelligence. I met a guy from Britain, who lives in Sweden as I was picking up pizza near where I’m staying in Hannover, Germany for Agritechnica. He works for a company that provides software that manages sensors in large machines and uses computers to monitor and recommend maintenance. They expect there are places where such software could provide value in agriculture. Also, in a strange quirk, that guy’s uncle is a former premier of Nova Scotia, John Savage.

– John Greig is a senior editor with Glacier FarmMedia. Watch for much more detail on these and many more stories and videos from Agritechnica in our Glacier FarmMedia newspapers and websites.

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