Hi NIF,
When you get a minute send me some shots of the Hydraulics on your D6C, no hurry. Is the reservior mounted in front of the firewall on the tractor or are you pulling oil from the transmission sump? We have a D5 that we built a seperate tank in front of the firewall, thereby creating a seperate oil reservior for the hydraulics, its a two valve cat system. Always had trouble with the values leaking inside the cab. its been better since its now a seperate system and the oil doesn't get as hot. Nice setup on yours with the remote handles outside the cab to help with hooking an unhooking.
Thanks!!

Woody- yes the D6C and both our other cats have the reservoir in front of the firewall, most ag cats around here have that setup with two valves.


We were able to start winter wheat harvest on Monday and cut every day the past 5 days with only a few minor breakdowns such as a flat tire on a truck, and a bearing on a combine. Also had a little fire start on the exhaust of a combine from all the extra dust from the rust in the wheat. First field lower elevation did 87bu/a (very unexpected) next the wheat planted on CRP takeout averaged 48bu/a with the small portion that was disked being way higher. Then we got on our own ground up top where the cold hurt it a little more (than the 87bu field) and it is doing about 70bu/a but still have more to cut.

Hi guys. Just a few pictures of our county the Shropshire Plain, taken from the Wrekin - the only volcanic hill outcrop in the county.



Our coal power station 3 miles from The Wrekin.



DIAL built by my engineering friend and installed 1354 feet above sea level.



Sorry no steel tracks but rubbers . This harvester is class Lexion. In the good old USA it is painted yellow and called a caterpillar. All german with a choice of engines - Caterpillar or Mercedes.



This machine has been covering 100 acres a day on wheat at 4 tons per acre. i.e. 400 tons a day. This is on some of the best land in the county. And top management 2 men cover 2000 acres of wheat oilseed rape . The rear wheels of the harvester had to be converted to hydrostatic drive because the none driven wheels just bulldozed in very wet soil. This forced the tracks to bury themselves when the harvester was carrying its full tank of wheat of 8 tons, which also records tons acre plus moisture content up to 20 percent. This year July and August have been very wet causing lots of expensive drying.

[img]http://www.goldrose.plus.com/Old harvester.JPG[/img]

We also have quite a few small growers using 20 year old machines running on historical costs. They survive because they are very frugal spenders .This grower gets good yields on fenland. i.e. muck soils and all the land is lift pump drained and is 1 foot below sea level? The area is 120 miles east of Shropshire.

[img]http://www.goldrose.plus.com/Country lane.JPG[/img]

Farmers with harvesters are not very popular with our town cousins during certain times of the year. Some of our highways in little old England are not as wide as yours.

Cheers,
Atlas

Atlas,
Pretty country...None of the rectangular fields in your area like in the mid-west US. Traveled in England/Wales/Isle of Man a few years back on motorcycle and remember seeing grain (wheat?) being harvested. I swear there was water dripping out of the back of the grain truck it was so wet...couldn't figure out how they got it through the combine.

I remember those narrow roads with rock walls on both sides...met a very small car on one and had to lean the bike over against the wall so the car could pass and it still brushed my foot on the way by.

Hi D6c we have had 2very wet years july and august ,just when harvesters start to role. very nailbiting hanging around for a dry day. one ray of hope has been the increase in price of wheat due to the Rusian shortfall of their own crops.Feed wheat last year eighty ponds a ton this year one hundred and fifty plus twenty or more premium if it makes bread quality. This sounds great for those growers who have not forward contracted. Due to this situation fertilizer companys have started to increase the prices for next year? cheers Atlas

Atlas- nice pics, I dont think we could move some of our equipment down that narrow road.

We are not yet finished with harvest but are getting close, it rained last night and it has been cloudy and cold much of the past couple weeks. We just have some lentils left and then we will be done but several other farms have wheat to cut still, along with other crops. Several guys with garbanzo beans out are worried they might not ripen up in time.

I was not able to get any good pictures of this harvest since we ran both machines all the time and there was so much more dust this year taking pics from the combine didnt work well. I think my sister may have taken some while she was visiting for a few days I will see if I can get those.

We had a few breakdowns but nothing too bad, a broken cylinder belt when the cylinder slugged while cutting weedy lentils, a seized up air conditioner, bad coupler between the hydrostat and transmission (we thought this one was going be bad but wasnt a big deal), and the belt fell apart on the rotary air screen on the blue machine and caused the radiator to boil over.

Winter wheat averaged 68bu/a (10 year average is 81) and spring wheat did 54bu/a (10yr avg 52) , winter lentils did about 1,100lb/a (10yr avg 1,700) and canola 500lb/a (10yr avg 1200), spring lentils are doing about 800lb/a so far (10yr avg 1400)



This was a few days ago, I tried starting cutting again after a rain but the lentil vines were too tough and the header was just sliding over the top of them so we parked for a few days and plowed while the crop dried.





The blue machine has this mechanical chaff spreader while the red has a similar one that it had last year but with the air tube rerouted



Some of my favorite action shots from the past couple years















Though harvest is not done we have a good start on fall plowing, once we started lentils we did not need a truck driver most of the time so my uncle started dry plowing to get the quack grass. On a rain break I finished up those fields- still not much moisture in the ground so hopefully it will still kill some quack grass. We are plowing all but 90 acres of our winter wheat stubble so we will have plowed over 700 acres by the end of the fall.







We plowed in lands and chiseled out the dead furrows and headlands.



More steel track pictures coming over the next month of seeding, plowing, and other tillage.

NIF,
What HP do the D6 Ag cats run?....I'd be suprised if my D6c (powershift) would pull an 8-bottom plow.

We had a 12 x 18'' IH plow and a 12 x 20'' White plow that we pulled with a D7E47A.The IH did a better job but the White was stouter.Question I have when you plow,do you go round & round and end up in the middle and then plow out the corners like we did.

D6C- our D6C is somewhere in the 250 engine hp range, our D6B we know for sure is about 140. The D6B would just barely pull the 8 bottom plow in tough conditions and it was a slow job. The D6C will pull 8 bottoms in the toughest conditions easily, running in 5th & 6th all the time. Our JD chisel plow set in about 6 inches deep will pull harder than the moldboard running 8" deep.

Soil type makes a difference and I would say our soil falls in the middle of typical agricultural soils, some really heavy soil will require more hp, lighter sandier soil generally makes tillage implements pull easier.

Gary- our 8X 18"melroe is not a great plow but it was cheap, IH and Wil-rich plows were the most popular of the hinge back or flex-beam plows around here mostly 7-11 bottom 18". John deeres are more common for newer plows. We plow in a variety of ways, we generally uphill plow steeper parts of the fields to reduce tillage erosion, for a couple years we were uphill plowing everything due to our conservation program but this year we dont have to. Many fields around here were plowed round and round for years and the soil is about gone out of the center and there are plow banks on the edges so for those fields we plow backwards or "inside out" starting a backfurrow in the center of the field (works really well on fields with long skinny sections) and plowing out to the edge of the field. Other fields we plow around and round and make a turn to the right at the corners so we dont plow any corners out at the end. We plow a few fairly flat fields with straight sides in straight lands back and forth across the field turning on the headlands. We may use all these methods in the same field as well, main point is we try to plow creatively and not do much tillage erosion.

Hi NIF Your scenery is worth x thousands of dollars just to work in your area .I notice yor welding is holding on the plough you must be a good welder? just a quick one, how many acres can you plough with one set of points and cutters cheers Atlas