“AFGRI Esperance’s demo program this year put a massive focus on showing clients how easy it is to set up the machines for different crop types. Everyone we took a demo to took real notice of the ease of operation, maintenance and how you can spend more time harvesting and less time adjusting.

Starting with both fronts, we were able to show the ‘green on green advantage’ with the height sensing working very well in challenging conditions, as well as reel resume, cut resume and auto reel speed which a lot of our demo clients had not experienced before. Again, noted by a lot of the walkarounds completed on the day, there is very little daily maintenance on the machine and the single point latching and hook up system allowed for more time harvesting.

Moving along to the machine, we received a lot of positive comments on our wide and short feeder house which since 2015, has a four-strand chain and an 8-in front drum which make a huge difference in feeding bigger material - Deere says up to 10% better than previous models. With all the new features on the feeder house, this allows for seamless crop flow into the feed accelerator and into a wide opening to the rotor.

There was a lot of questions around the active concave isolation. Essentially, the accumulated concave holds pressure to force the crop more evenly through the rotor which in return allows for better threshing and smoother slug protection which doesn’t require any stopping to reset and took away any noise in the cab from the concave. We also had two different concave setups to show the performance capabilities of different configurations.

A big discussion on the day was cleaning area of our shoe. This was very exciting for us because we have a lot of new features since 2016 build harvesters. Both machines have the same size cleaning area which is now 5.6m square of louvered cleaning area which surprised a lot of people. The quality and finish of the German built machines was also noted very highly among the people who came through.

AFGRI TechTalk Edition 1, 2020

S700 harvesters - Dermie’s demo talking pointsOne of the biggest challenges for the Australian farmers we have noted this year on our demo tour was the constant battle between quality grain sample or cracked grain. You could tell that John Deere’s Research & Development department have spent a lot of time in this area of the machine because even on the hottest of days this year, we were not cracking grain with our demo machines. John Deere have always been renowned for how gentle they are on handling seeds or grains with all their products. The harvesters achieve this by having components with a big radius and slower moving to carry big amounts of material and using the horse power to get the job done. One thing that I have noticed since I have come to Australia from Europe is the quality of grain being so high. High quality grain leads to top quality prices for the producer. The John Deere range of harvesters ensures any of the grain that is in the grain tank is going to get the highest value that can be reached.

Another example of how gentle the machine is on grain is its big-diameter unloading auger. Again, BIG AUGER LOW SPEED moves BULK MATERIAL. John Deere can achieve this by using their direct drive systems through the whole machine. These machines also run Active Tailings Return System which takes additional load off the rotor and reduces the risk of that grain getting cracked as it has its own separate concave which is then augured back over the whole width of the return pan. The transmission on the demo machines is what we call in the John Deere World, a ProDriveTM transmission. When this was demonstrated to clients, they quickly began to figure out that this transmission was much more than just pushing a lever forward. This transmission was going to save them time and money. To achieve this, it starts with a higher displacement hydrostatic motor than any other machine. Both the pump and motor are variable-displacement components that allow ProDriveTM to maintain high levels of torque to the ground throughout each of the two operating-speed ranges. ProDriveTM provides operators with superior control of the combine ground drive through the CommandARMTM armrest console. Using the navigation tools on the armrest, the operator can dial in the desired maximum-attainable speed within each of the two modes. For example, if a maximum harvest speed of 13 km/h is desired and set, the full forward position of the hydrostatic control handle will deliver the speed of 13 km/h. This

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AFGRI Esperance hosted a Total Harvest Solutions Demo towards the end of last year. AFGRI Esperance sales representative Diarmuid Lombard reflects on the very successful event and what we were hoping to showcase to our customers.

feature provides more precise and comfortable control of the combine ground speed throughout the travel range of the hydro handle. The adjustability of the range of speed can also make manoeuvring the combine in close quarters, as well as connecting header equipment, much easier.

When operating in muddy, hilly terrain or in sandy conditions that may cause one of the tires to lose traction, the differential lock enables the operator to maintain productivity. If traction is lost, the operator can quickly and easily engage the differential lock by pressing the differential lock button on the CommandARMTM armrest console.

In a nutshell, the benefits that were showcased on the transmission were:

• No need to stop to shift transmission gears. • Precise control of combine speed and hydro handle lever (very good when low speed is required for hooking up a front).• Automatic powershift technology between speed ranges.• High-capacity, high-torque ground drive performance during harvest and transport.• When in transport mode, engine revolutions will automatically increase and decrease to reduce fuel cost of up to 20%.

Seeding time starts at harvest which is why we showcased our intermediate residue package 100 knife chopper on this year’s machines. With more than double the amount of knifes than previous models, we were able to get in there and show the straw who was boss and didn’t let it become a worry for next year’s seeding program.

As far as other options go on the residue market, we have a:

• A spinner only option. • A manual vein tailboard option with 44 knife chopper.• A deluxe spinner and chopper with 44 knife chopper.• An intermediate spinner and chopper option with 100 knife chopper and steel finger spinners.• A premium spinner and chopper option with 100 knife chopper, steel fingers, rear over shot beater, chop to drop option for straw windrowing.

Managing weed seeds is something that the Australian farming community is at the forefront of. At AFGRI Equipment, we are extremely lucky to have a couple of solutions. One solution is putting a factory-fit Redekop seed control unit on our harvesters from 2020. This will

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Continued from previous page...be fully factory-supported by John Deere but can only be fitted with our manual vein chopper at this stage. Some nice features to this system are ease of access to the rear of the machine as it lifts with the chopper as well as disconnecting and using the chopper as normal. It is very neat when the machine is not required when cutting high up in a difficult crop such as canola. Another very exciting option for us is Seed Terminator which can be fitted to any of our chopper systems. These have been in the market for a few years now and have been going exceptionally well for us in the Esperance area having proved themselves with the research they have done with their mills to the point that now they are reducing operator costs and killing weeds at the same time. Sounds like a winner to me.

Both machines were powered by 13.5L Tier 2 engines and with the JDLinkTM telematics system, we were accurately able to say that one machine used 77.7 Litres an hour over 128 hrs of usage. With JDLinkTM, we were intensively able to look at machine performance constantly on the go using the Machine Analyser feature. This is able to give us every performance measurement that is required for the machine and when we showed this to clients they were again blown away with the ease of access to this type of information and how well a machine just off the production line was performing.

We had a very successful day showcasing the industry -leading tech that John Deere have to offer. We achieved this by setting up a ‘farm office’ in the paddock alongside the machines so that the clients could see the data directly correlating straight into a MyJohnDeere account. With data being so important to our industry, you could see that it ticked a lot of people’s boxes seeing how seamless the process was of setting up a harvest file, putting an operator

John Deere S700 Series combine harvester taking crop off.

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in the cab, accepting the file in the screen via Wireless Data Transfer and then go harvesting. No more than 30 seconds later, that data is sitting on a computer for our Precision Ag team to show the people having a bite to eat and a cool drink. This was all achieved again by Wireless Data Transfer, ready to be managed for the following year’s program and not a wire or USB stick to be seen.

A big focus on our demonstrators this year was how much more accurate we could be with our data and how much more performance we could get from the operators with less input. We achieved this with several new features that have become available to us on the S700 series harvesters.

Firstly, ActiveYield. This is a system that allows us to weigh each grain tank load with the help of the moisture and mass flow sensor to give us a constant reading of what is coming off the paddock in real time. In return, this allows for accurate agronomic decisions after harvest. Another nice feature of the tool was we were able to give real time weight readings of what we had left in the paddock so trucks or bins could be organised on the go allowing for less guess work and more harvesting.

Combine AdvisorTM has been around for a couple of years now and has become the market leader in automation in harvester speed and settings. The system allows you to set up normally in any harvesting conditions you are happy with (the same as the old machines) using your loss monitors to monitor what is leaving the machine. If you are having issues, you can then use the optimise performance tab on the screen to rectify these issues as a step-by-step process so anyone can resolve a problem that you have told it about. This system has been around now for several years and is a nice entry level feature to optimizing performance.

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John Deere industry-leading technology between machines.

Continued from previous page...After that, the customers started to see the real fun stuff - Auto Maintain which allows the machine to maintain the settings you had set up previously for the whole day. This proved to be a great feature because of our constant change in temperatures in the Esperance region. ActiveTerrain Adjustment allows for louvers and fan speed to be adjusted automatically using fore and aft pitch on the receiver to detect hill angle and required fan speed.

In 2012, John Deere released the S-Series harvesters with a completely redesigned cab which gave the operators a much more pleasant environment for those long harvest days. This was achieved by giving a lot more space in the cab by increasing the size and adding a lot more storage compartments including a fridge.

In 2018, we were introduced with the S700 series harvester which had big updates to the cab with:

• Repositioning of the corner post display to allow better visibility of the front.• 4600 Gen 4 screen. • Camera ready options. • Updated Bluetooth and sound systems. • Foot pegs.• Grain tank mirrors. • Swivelling seat, leather package with cooling and ventilation. • CommandARMTM and multifunction lever to improve operator comfort with more ergonomic design. • Customizable buttons to allow operators to set functionality to their preference. • Dedicated mobile phone holder for connected operator.• Two high speed USB charging ports to keep the operators connected. The feedback from many customers who attended the demo was the technology on our machines now is light years ahead in the market and very user friendly. It has created a lot of excitement in the market using the systems on the harvester to consistently make it more efficient as the conditions in the day constantly change. It is very reassuring to see that the future is bright with John Deere combine harvesters. For our demo, we would especially like to thank the Dellavedova family for facilitating our day and providing us with the opportunity to showcase our equipment.”

For more information on our John Deere harvesters or to learn about our early order program for harvest 2020, contact your local AFGRI branch today.