North Idaho Farmer:
The two J.D. Combines were a 6602 and a 6620 Sidehill, JD 95H before that. We rented an additional 7720 one fall do to rain and we needed to get done. We have some steep ground, not a lot. We have a couple of places that would put the limit light on the levelar.
Not many Hillsides running down here anymore, guys are running 9770's JD's dualed up or 8010 Cases dualed up, 30 to 35 foot headers. A few R75 Gleaners and they run duals as well. They can cut as much or more than two of our old ones, they come with a healthy price tag however ($325,000 plus) thats a lot of wheat!
How far north of Moscow are you? Near Viola or Potlatch?
I always said if I could farm anywhere it would be Genesee Idaho, some nice country around Pendleton and Walla Walla as well. Thanks Again for the pics, Keep on posting. Hope the coming year brings a good crop for you!

First off thanks to all who commented I think I mostly luck out with having a good background for the pics.

"Woody" wrote:

North Idaho Farmer:
The two J.D. Combines were a 6602 and a 6620 Sidehill, JD 95H before that. We rented an additional 7720 one fall do to rain and we needed to get done. We have some steep ground, not a lot. We have a couple of places that would put the limit light on the levelar.
Not many Hillsides running down here anymore, guys are running 9770's JD's dualed up or 8010 Cases dualed up, 30 to 35 foot headers. A few R75 Gleaners and they run duals as well. They can cut as much or more than two of our old ones, they come with a healthy price tag however ($325,000 plus) thats a lot of wheat!
How far north of Moscow are you? Near Viola or Potlatch?
I always said if I could farm anywhere it would be Genesee Idaho, some nice country around Pendleton and Walla Walla as well. Thanks Again for the pics, Keep on posting. Hope the coming year brings a good crop for you!

Know what you mean about those new combines being pricey, thats why these old 22s are still so common in this area.

Yes Genesee does have very good soil and a good climate, go into Washington and there is still really good soil in some places but it is a little too dry to utilize it as I understand it.

I am actually located southeast of Moscow, the timber and hills may look like the potlatch area but there are no deep canyons up there.

North Idaho Farmer, Are you close to Kendrick? I don't know that area well enough to know exactly where it is.

The river in some of your pics then is the Clearwater?

I have a farm between Waitsburg and Dayton. Put a lot of miles on steel tracks in the past but now our land is all leased out to a farmer who usees JD Wheel tractors.

Not too many steel tracks left down here however last spring I was at a farm sale where 5 D5s all went for over 5K.

"cojhl2" wrote:

North Idaho Farmer, Are you close to Kendrick? I don't know that area well enough to know exactly where it is.

The river in some of your pics then is the Clearwater?

I have a farm between Waitsburg and Dayton. Put a lot of miles on steel tracks in the past but now our land is all leased out to a farmer who usees JD Wheel tractors.

Not too many steel tracks left down here however last spring I was at a farm sale where 5 D5s all went for over 5K.

Yes, east of Kendrick 15 miles or so. And yep thats the clearwater off to the south in the canyon.

If you dont mind me asking, what models of cats did you run and what was your general crop rotation? Did you grow spring crops or mostly do winter wheat-fallow?

Sure enjoy the farming pictures. Like to hear how other people farm in different areas. No longer farm with steel tracks, use Challenger MT765's. My land is scattered out, the old Cats are not very handy for moving. Darrol D8H, SW Kansas

"Darrol wrote:

Sure enjoy the farming pictures. Like to hear how other people farm in different areas. No longer farm with steel tracks, use Challenger MT765's. My land is scattered out, the old Cats are not very handy for moving. Darrol D8H, SW Kansas

Thats one of the reasons many people moved away from them around here. We luck out and dont have to haul them anywhere as most of the roads around here are gravel. Had one neighbor that quit farming about 6 years ago but up until then they hauled a D5 over 30 miles between two areas of the farm. Most everyone who still runs them are the ones that dont have to haul. I only know of two other farms nearby that run steel tracks as the main workhorses anymore, one runs a D6C and a D5, the other runs two D5s. Alot of other neighbors still have a cat but only use it for one specific thing, one guy puts his fertilizer on with his D6B, a couple others only use the cats to seed with; another farm only pulls their D5 out to pull a 10 bottom plow with in the fall.

Non-existant user wrote:

If you dont mind me asking, what models of cats did you run and what was your general crop rotation? Did you grow spring crops or mostly do winter wheat-fallow?

Hi North Idaho Farmer.

My family for many years(1908 & 1949) owned two small farms. neither was large enough to have a hired Cat driver. My Dad and Uncle farmed them with two Ford Wheel tractors and a WK Allis Chalmers.

That being said most of my experience was working for two different farmers one from 1951 to 1956 and the other from 1954 to 1962. During that time of course I was in school, worked seasonal for GGCo (who had 23 9U's to farm about 25K Green pea acres) and did short stints with other farmers in the area.

Now back to the response. The first major farmer was in the Pomeroy area where of course in those days was all International and Oldsmobile.

These were the days of Crop rotation that consisted of Wheat to what ever the allotment would allow and the balance Barley.Summerfallow was the other half of the farm. Since the TD35 was steel track and the machinery was drag (plow (5 bottom), Springtooth(36ft) Rodweed(36ft)) we farmed one year on one side of the hiway and the other side would be the crop. Each side was about 500ac.

The crop was harvested with an International 51 which was all the TD35 could handle on those soft steep hillsides. That made a Catdriver out of you! I pulled that Combine the first year 1952.

The TD35 was a wonderful tractor and except for the Combine could work all day alongside a 3Cyl. (A 3cyl could handle a 36B where a TD35 would have been on its tail!!)

Note: I have a tractor history book that describes those old International diesels as a hybrid. That's BS, they had a very innovative way to get the engine started but once it was on diesel it was a bonafide CI engne.

Sometimes just before school started there were short (maybe a week or two) where I worked for other farmers like where I got my 35 and 40 3 cyl experience. What i remember about that is one of those tractors you had to go thru one gear (Lower right side) to get to another. I don't remember which one (that was over 50 years ago). One of those tractors was on one farm and the other farm had the other tractor. (remember no road capability).

Starting in 1954 part time during school and the fultime summer in 1957 i worked until 1962 for a farmer in Waitsburg. There we had a beautiful and well maintained (he would have had it no other way) a 3cyl D6 and a 1954 oil clutch 9U.

There the crop rotation was the same, Wheat to full allotment, Barley remainder, and 1/2 the farm in summerfallow. Again split by blacktop dictates movement of machinery once a year.

Here I pulled a 36B with that beautiful 9U. Remember going up those ole hot draws tailwind tarweed, chaf, and straw so darnd deep you could not see your legs on the seat, griping to yourself what a crummy job. I gotta get out of this mess and go to college. Then at the top of the ridge, turn into the wind, start the combination down the other side, shake the chaf out of your shirt, shift the cat on the go to 4th, keep the clutch thrown, now we are in a controlled coast with brake on, shut the engine off to clear the radiator, straw and chaf falls off, slowly pull the clutch back in so as not to jerk the combine, engine restarts, sync gears back to 2nd then off again about half throttle in 2nd working toward our 3000bu per day.

Today these combines get that in and hour!!

Oh, and for one of these short shots for a 2week period I pulled a 36A with a D7 in the Covello area.

Well, in 1958 I started college at WSC and from that really never went back to the farm. I did work however for JE Love for 4 years right out of college. They were a wonderful company to work for and I owe them a lot. They gave me a great chance to learn the real world of mech engineering.

Well anyway 34 years with IBM and MCI, I now live in COS with these two family farms leased out since the middle 60's to the same farmer. I spend 6 summer mos every year helping where possible mostly with the irrigation and messing with my 5J, 9U, 1990 Dodge Cummins, 1967 Chev 1/2 stepside(in the family since new), 1956 Ford 860 wheel tractor (also since new) and getting in the way of the person who really farms our ground.

Today of course farming practice is so much different than when I left. Now we minimum till, the grain farms split into three plots, Winter Wheat, Spring Wheat, and non crop.

What a difference! how naive i was when I returned in 2003. I was going to farm the flat myself with the Ford. i started by plowing the 60ac stubble under. Bout killed me! I beat myself to death across that transmission housing and then learned I don't know a darn thing about farming anyway!! I finished the job but as I said I learned I had no idea how the current practices were. So that patch went to our Lessee also!

Well anyway, you asked a simple question and i gave you a history book. I guess this is evidence I really miss those days.

Your pictures are wonderful. Most of the world has no idea how beautiful these hills are.

Which brings me to this memory. although the last two harvests in which I worked I drove a 95H, while in my cat and combine years I remember many times the uphill track nicking the grain while the whole combination was angled down hill until only about 4ft of a 16ft header would be in the grain. Always the argument around the dinner table was when the combine starts to jump down hill do you stop or speed up?? I always stopped but some other cat drivers said to speed up to break the frequency. The International 51 I don't think ever had that problem but the 36B was known for it.

The world has sure changed and I am not so sure it's for the best!!

Awesome pics,nice Cats and beautiful country.Thanks for sharing.

Hi North Idaho Farmer .What moisture content do you sell your wheat at point of sale.I understand some areas it never rains at harvest ? is this true.in the UK it feels as if it rains every other day.best regards Atlas.

Atlas;50661 wrote:

Hi North Idaho Farmer .What moisture content do you sell your wheat at point of sale.I understand some areas it never rains at harvest ? is this true.in the UK it feels as if it rains every other day.best regards Atlas.[/QUOTE

We dont dry our grain down at all usually so when it gets down to about 13% we start cutting, much of it ends up 10% or so. Much of the northwest wheat growing area gets very little rain during harvest. We get a few quick showers usually but no heavy continuous rains. 2004 and 2008 we had several inches of rain on the ripe wheat which caused sprout damage and bad dockage from the falling numbers test. Our wheats are soft white which will sprout easier in the head than red wheats grown in areas with wetter summers.