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What is the Greatest Machine of the past 75 years?

Last post Mon, Oct 4 2010 12:18 by simonp. 41 replies.
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  • Wed, May 27 2009 16:03

    What is the Greatest Machine of the past 75 years?

    As part of Farmers Weekly's 75th anniversary we're running a major series to identify some farming 'greats'. This is the thread we are using to identify the Greatest Farming Machines of the past 75 years - so please pitch in with your suggestions.

    Anyone who puts forward a suggestion for this category, brought to you in association with EB Equipment, will have their name entered into a prize draw to win a free subscription to Farmers Weekly. There will be a prize draw for each of the six categories that are running.

    Content Editor for Farmers Weekly
  • Wed, May 27 2009 20:39 In reply to

    • sjk
    • Top 50 Contributor
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    • Joined on Thu, Jul 26 2007
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    Re: What is the Greatest Machine of the past 75 years?

     I would have said the foreloader though in recent years the computer

    Sam

    Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
    Groucho Marx
  • Thu, May 28 2009 8:34 In reply to

    • avalon
    • Top 200 Contributor
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    Re: What is the Greatest Machine of the past 75 years?

    How about the Bulk milk tank, saved so much work, made milk storage safer, but I miss the art of rolling milk cans.

  • Thu, May 28 2009 15:15 In reply to

    Re: What is the Greatest Machine of the past 75 years?

    For the livestock end, the big round baler has to be right at the top. 

  • Fri, May 29 2009 16:08 In reply to

    Re: What is the Greatest Machine of the past 75 years?

    A 4x4 truck.

    You can do everything with 'em! Like trailer pulling, chain harrowing, rabbit lamping...

    The workhorse of the smallholder (as we can't afford a tractor.)

    ~Meggiewes~

    Keep Calm and Corringham!

    Check out my blog: http://www.fwi.co.uk/community/blogs/meggiewes/default.aspx
    Or just look at my snaps: http://www.fwi.co.uk/community/photos/meggiewes/default.aspx
  • Fri, Jun 5 2009 9:07 In reply to

    • squid
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    Re: What is the Greatest Machine of the past 75 years?

    got to be Fergy TE20. great tractor that revolutionised farming!

     

  • Mon, Jun 15 2009 16:41 In reply to

    Re: What is the Greatest Machine of the past 75 years?

    The Massey Ferguson 35x.

    A weekend wasted is not a wasted weekend.

    FLAT OUT FARMING!!
  • Mon, Jun 15 2009 19:04 In reply to

    Re: What is the Greatest Machine of the past 75 years?

    Does a hydraulic ram count ? Most machines would be lost without one!

  • Wed, Jun 17 2009 17:37 In reply to

    Re: What is the Greatest Machine of the past 75 years?

    Here are some suggestions from the FW team. But remember these are only to get you thinking - who wins will be your decision.

    The Massey-Harris 726 combine harvester

    Many cereal growers will already have decided which machine has made the biggest impact on their farms - it has to be the combine harvester, but deciding which combine made the breakthrough is less clear-cut.

    Combines were not invented by one person or one company, but result from many different ideas developed over 180 years or more. But the machine that brought it all together for British farmers was the Massey-Harris 726.

    In terms of technology and affordability, it was a major breakthrough. The cutting width was 8ft 6in (2.6m) and the power unit initially was a 55hp petrol engine, but a Perkins L4 diesel was available later.

    For many thousands of farmers, the 726 was the first combine that offered a realistic opportunity to make massive gains in efficiency and productivity by ditching the binder and the threshing machine.  - Michael Williams

    The Maschio HB3000 power harrow

    As all real farmers know, ploughing is the best start for a seedbed.

    Thirty years ago, though, the next step in the process could be a nightmare, especially for us heavy-land growers. Multiple passes with trailed discs would sometimes be needed - a bit like what experts today call ‘min-till'.

    Then, in the early 80s our first power harrow arrived, a Maschio HB3000, revolutionizing seedbed preparation.

    Since then, we've never been without one - but that first one was the best. It was sturdy but light, thanks to a lack of superstructure and multiple guards. We ran it behind a 2wd Ford 7600 on low-pressure duals and no front weights.

    Minimum power requirement was only 70hp, so the 7600 was perfect, skipping over the ground, levelling out all signs of my incompetent ploughing. - Charlie Flindt

    The Ferguson TE20 tractor

    On 6 July, 1946 the first Ferguson TE20 tractor rolled off the line at Banner Lane, Coventry, starting production of the ‘Little Grey Fergie', which changed tractor design forever and revolutionised power farming across the globe.

    Compare a TE20 with other tractors of the same era and it's clear to see just how far ahead of its time it really was.

    The antiquated ideas on its heavy, bulky counterparts had more in common with small steam engines, from which they were developed, than modern tractors.

    More than 516,000 TE20 tractors were built and exported all over the world. And many of these tractors are working today, still helping to mechanise operations on small farms - Mick Roberts

    Honda TRX300 ‘Big Red'

    They may not ‘plough the fields and scatter' but ATVs - or quads, if you like - deserve the title of Farming's Greatest Machine for transforming work and transport practices on farms across the country.

    It's all thanks to British hill farmers, who were first to appreciate the ATV's work-machine potential, and Honda, whose TRX300 of the late 1980s/early 1990s was one of the most popular and effective vehicles of this type.

    Tidy examples that have been spruced up after an easy life are still much in demand, selling for more money today than they did when new.

    Shepherds, still among the biggest users of ATVs, love it when they have an eager, trustworthy and responsive sheepdog to work with - and many thought much the same about the ‘Big Red'.

    Bullet-proof reliability, strong performance, reasonable economy, easy manoeuvrability and tenacious grip are endearing qualities.- Peter Hill

    Land Rover Defender 90 tdi

    Yes, you could argue the Grey Ferguson is farming's great machine and, yes, the combine revolutionised harvesting - but there's something that surpasses even these achievements - the Land Rover Defender 90 tdi.

    As ubiquitous as the Fergy to UK farms but more productive than a harvester, it's done more for farming than any furrow maker or crop thresher ever could since its introduction in 1990.

    And here's why. You can eulogise about Henry Ferguson's three-point-linkage system's flexibility over Land Rover's 4x4 platform introduced not long after in 1954. And yes, both have long lasting appeal. But the Defender 90 tdi remains a benchmark by which other, later 4x4s are still judged.

    A 2009 Land Rover 90 2.4tdci has a basic list price of £16,600, does 24mpg and is capable of pulling 3.5t. At its introduction the Defender tdi cost less, did more mpg and pulled the same weight.

    While combines languish in sheds for 11 months and grey Fergies largely only see active service at summer shows, quietly and without fuss an army of Defender 90 tdis are busy keeping UK farm businesses moving 24/7, 365 days of the year. - Simon Wragg

    Lely Astronaut robotic milker

    The arrival of the first Lely Astronaut robotic milker in 1995 was important, but it didn't seem like a particularly momentous event in the history of farm machinery development.

    Yet nearly 15 years later, it is gaining significance. Not so much because of the welfare benefits it gave to cows and the economic benefits it gave to dairy farms, but because of the effect it had on young farmers' social lives.

    Being a small dairy farmer is a round-the-clock, 365 days a year job with holidays few and far between. Across Europe it was getting harder and harder for young dairy farmers to find a wife because women knew that dairying often meant a life of hard graft.

    But the arrival of the robotic milker liberated the farmer from the twice-a-day milking and made him a much more marriageable prospect.

    Robot milkers are not cheap, so their uptake has been steady rather than spectacular. But the proportion of all milk that comes via a robot milker is rising steadily and some pundits reckon that it can only be a matter of time before all cows are milked this way. Robot feeders and muckscrapers are gaining ground too.

    Arnold Schwarzenegger had it right in Terminator 2 - the robots are coming - David Cousins

    Content Editor for Farmers Weekly
  • Thu, Jun 18 2009 13:21 In reply to

    • motley
    • Top 150 Contributor
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    • Suffolk

    Re: What is the Greatest Machine of the past 75 years?

    Isabel Davies:
    On 6 July, 1946 the first Ferguson TE20 tractor rolled off the line at Banner Lane, Coventry, starting production of the ‘Little Grey Fergie', which changed tractor design forever and revolutionised power farming across the globe.

    I have never found machines sympathetic to my way of doing things, having said that horses are even less in tune with my ways.

    I have wondered about this category, and think this is the most straight forward one to vote for an outstanding machine in the last 75 years. However I must concede that without machines the drudgery of farming would be all the more.

    I think that the TE20 must be the greatest machine, all that has happened in the meantime, is as the late great Colin Chapman said; they only get bigger (he was referring to cars). In 75 years time we will look back and say it was computerization which has to be a very close second to the TE20 in this poll.

    Farming is for us, all.
  • Thu, Jun 18 2009 14:36 In reply to

    Re: What is the Greatest Machine of the past 75 years?

    I think you are all being too specific in naming single machines and models. My nomination for the finest and most useful type of kit on the farm is the all terrain four wheel drive and steer fork lift. Never a day goes by when we don't use ours. It moves fertiliser in one tonne bags, loads grain onto lorries and pushes it up in the store at harvest time, carries bales of hay and staw from field to trailer and from store to where they are needed, loads muck onto spreaders (after which it has to have a good wash down before being used on grain, of course), and so on. I have hardly touched the potential of these wonderful machines that have taken most of the backache out of farming. The make and model are largely irrelevant. Its the concept that matters and they get better all the time.
  • Thu, Jun 18 2009 17:39 In reply to

    • dougs
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    Re: What is the Greatest Machine of the past 75 years?

     

    i got say the john deere 3350
  • Thu, Jun 18 2009 17:40 In reply to

    Re: What is the Greatest Machine of the past 75 years?

    You can do all that with a tractor and front end loader.

    I think the front end loader is the best farm machine,because you can handle fertilize,muck,hay,staw,etc

    and its not a pain to park or jump from one cab to another like a mad march hare.

    A weekend wasted is not a wasted weekend.

    FLAT OUT FARMING!!
  • Thu, Jun 18 2009 21:05 In reply to

    • normy71
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    • shropshire

    Re: What is the Greatest Machine of the past 75 years?

    got to agree with mr richardson,we`d be lost (and knackered!!!) without it and it saves hours and our new manitou has a better equipped cabin than my car!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

  • Fri, Jun 19 2009 13:02 In reply to

    • tatties
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    • Joined on Sat, Jun 13 2009

    Re: What is the Greatest Machine of the past 75 years?

    As regards potato growing, I suggest that the stone-separator completely revolutionised the job.

  • Fri, Jun 19 2009 16:15 In reply to

    Re: What is the Greatest Machine of the past 75 years?

    This was emailed in by Charles Kane
    Beyond shadow of doubt the greatest pieces of equipment inventedinthe last 75 years is the Vaderstaad Carrier. Used for primary or secondary tillage it always produces and even firm seed bed.
     
    Ideal for min-till preparations with its choice of discs or tines while also being a fantastic tool for the less advanced among us who insist on using dark ages technology (the plough).
     
    Fine tilth created, clods busted, uneven areas leveled with the adjustable level board and seedbed compacted all in one pass and not requiring inordinate amounts of horse power.
     
    In the carrier I trust. No contest.
    For a round-up of quirky rural news see my blog Field Day
  • Fri, Jun 19 2009 17:02 In reply to

    • topfarmer
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    • Isle of wight

    Re: What is the Greatest Machine of the past 75 years?

    Back in 75 years i wasnt even born or my mum lol but what i think is the most obvious is THE GREAT TRACTOR lol it must of been so hard for farmers to do work with just a horse or by hand. Tractors created the future of farming and a masive genaration to come.

     if you told a normal farmer now to farm with out any tractors i dont think he would do it. Thats how forward tractors took farming to a next genaration.

  • Sat, Jun 20 2009 13:44 In reply to

    Re: What is the Greatest Machine of the past 75 years?

    It has to be a loader of some sort. If it wasn't for the loader the possibilities of the 0.5 tonne + bale wouldnt be avalible. Or could it be the first engine, I mean.. We have to start somewhere. Josh Worth, SW England.
  • Mon, Jun 22 2009 14:21 In reply to

    Re: What is the Greatest Machine of the past 75 years?

    The New Holland 376 baler.This was a good baler.Tine bar feed system ment that it looked a morden design.We still have one in use to day 33 yrs later,coupled up to aTS115.Also i would like to put forward the Howard rotor spreader,as that was a fantastic design.It was all bolted together 3 sizes the 100,150 & 200.

  • Mon, Jun 22 2009 15:18 In reply to

    Re: What is the Greatest Machine of the past 75 years?

     This nomination came in from Mr Gerrard:

    My personal vote for the” Greatest farming machine” has to go to the Deutz Fahr FH900 trailed forage harvester. We still run 3 of these superb machines(and have done for the last 18 years!)  Our 3 machines are fitted with the equally good Perkins 6354 engines. When first launched in the 1970’s, the FH900 was light years ahead of its competitors in many respects. For example:
    a) Excellent build quality and extremely reliable.
    b) Revolutionary drive design using mainly gears/shafts rather than chains/sprockets.
    c) Revolutionary simple “friction wheel” reversing mechanism(still in use on many more modern machines).
    d) Simple “modular” construction eg. the whole cutting drum/feed roller assembly can be easily removed in under half an hour on a tractor 3 point linkage and a replacement unit inserted(in case of a “blow up” etc.) Our local Deutz Fahr dealer used to carry this out in the field!
    Although I am a big fan of many newer trailed foragers eg. Reco SH40N flywheel, the only real advantage of these is a greater output. Their downside is that they are expensive to buy, parts are expensive and they are much more complicated with electro-hydraulic controls and more chains/sprockets etc.
    I am fortunate to have built up a huge amount of spares over the years (over 12 machines broken up!) Hence I plan to keep my FH900’s going for a good while longer, keep the contractors at bay and save one hell of an amount of money!
    Steve Gerrard (not the footballer!)

    For a round-up of quirky rural news see my blog Field Day
  • Wed, Jun 24 2009 8:53 In reply to

    • bluepaint
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    Re: What is the Greatest Machine of the past 75 years?

     

    HMMMM...The cigarette lighter ...Burning straw is proving to be increasingly more important..lol

    Best thing we did in the last 75 years was get rid of the plough..?

    ...Rotary combines.....Bale wrappers......Flail Hedge trimmers....power harrows.....Telescopic handlers...So many but the greatest farming tool that has revolutionised our way of farming has to be GM crops..!

  • Wed, Jun 24 2009 13:41 In reply to

    • AllyR
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    Re: What is the Greatest Machine of the past 75 years?

           Surely the combine harvester must be up there with the best. The strides these machines have made in the last 40 years is mind boggling. I remember hearing of a comment made by a farmer when he saw his first demo of a combine (before my time): "That's a machine will never take on". Well it did, and who could ever have imagined that one day it would harvest 50, 60, or 70 tonnes of grain per hour!!!

            With Combines in mind, although I agree with the comments on the M-H 726, my credit goes to the Claeys M103 (spelling?). We had one in the 1960's. It's large 24" drum and very clean flow through design ment that it could go almost as fast as the knife would cut (the knife, of course, was much slower in these days). It was a 10ft cut and did about 6 tonnes an hour in barley and set the design for the combines we know today.

            Perhaps one test for a "greatest machine ever", is if it answers the old adage: "The best thing since the sliced loaf" or similiar. I have certainly heard this said of the combine, the Fergie lift, the round baler, loaders of various knds and even things like silver tape! There are so many candidates I am rather glad that I don't have to be the Judge. 

    When in Rome, do as the Romans do.
  • Wed, Jun 24 2009 19:40 In reply to

    Re: What is the Greatest Machine of the past 75 years?

    After a week or so of breakages, I would say any one of the above mentioned machines will do, as long as it doesn't keep breaking! 

  • Thu, Jun 25 2009 10:21 In reply to

    • sjk
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    • Joined on Thu, Jul 26 2007
    • Kent, UK

    Re: What is the Greatest Machine of the past 75 years?

    David Richardson:
    I think you are all being too specific in naming single machines and models. My nomination for the finest and most useful type of kit on the farm is the all terrain four wheel drive and steer fork lift. Never a day goes by when we don't use ours. It moves fertiliser in one tonne bags, loads grain onto lorries and pushes it up in the store at harvest time, carries bales of hay and staw from field to trailer and from store to where they are needed, loads muck onto spreaders (after which it has to have a good wash down before being used on grain, of course), and so on. I have hardly touched the potential of these wonderful machines that have taken most of the backache out of farming. The make and model are largely irrelevant. Its the concept that matters and they get better all the time.
    I have got to admit I love our one we have just got. though the foreloader was excellent it was prone to being heavy on the steering as well as going through the clutches. Where the handler is lighter on the steering, quicker hydraulics, smoother ride and I don't have to remember to keep raising the counter weight when going in and out the driveway.

     

    Sam

    Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
    Groucho Marx
  • Thu, Jun 25 2009 16:27 In reply to

    Re: What is the Greatest Machine of the past 75 years?

    The conventunal baler.

    They saved hours collecting in hay and transporting it.They made way for bale wrappers,big and round balers and loading equiptment.

    A weekend wasted is not a wasted weekend.

    FLAT OUT FARMING!!
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