It will be interesting to see what happens to the size of farm machinery in the near future. Every other industry is getting smaller and slower due to the impending fuel shortage. There are no more Concordes,747's are being phased out and smaller turboprops are a hot item. Limos and SUV's are a dime a dozen and for the first time since WW2 the average size of a new home is smaller than the year before.
It is just a matter of time till the equipment industry trends smaller also. New machines carry more weigth in the tank than the machines of 50 years ago were in total. No doubt natural drying will make a come back. Sad but inevitable
Gallons per hour really means nothing but gallons per acre determines your costs. Which is why I dissagree with theoldtimer. Who care how many gallons per hour it burns as long as the gallons per acre stay the same or improve. The fact is smaller combines burn the same gallons per acre as the big ones despite the fact they burn a lot more gallons per hour. From what I've heard they are both around 1.4-1.5gallons per acre. The rotaries always burn more than a conventional or hybrid.
Tested an 8010 in avg 109 bu acre wheat (field avg) windrowing the straw with a 35 ft draper head avg output 14.3 acres/hrs, avg fuel used was 1.30 US gal/acre = 18.59 gal/hrs (fuel measured by nozzle in the tank not the cab display, started with full tank and refilled when finished). Ran engine power at 96-105% in a 64 acres field.
Plenty of variables will factor into fuel consumption, but mbfarmer has it right. These bigger combines are ultimately more efficient as a great deal of fuel is burned just moving these machines, and more passes (smaller machines) are going to burn more fuel than making fewer trips with a larger one. In soybeans with a draper head, these combines will come in around 1.8 gal/A and about the same with a 12R30 corn head. Make that a chopping 12R30 chopping cornhead, and the fuel consumption jumps considerably: 2.6 - 2.8 gal/A. The monitor in these combines tend to read slightly higher than actual field average, but they're fairly close.
8120 would be anywhere from .7-2.5 gal/acre. Running 40ft or larger headers to 12 row chopping headers. Just depends on the bushels and straw or stalk intake.
on our 8010 running corn we averaged 14.8 gallons per hour on 1600 acres. it does vary watching on the screen there is times in 250 bpa it may read 19 gallons a hour . for corn this year it was 14.8 like i said. i never checked to see what it was on soybeans i don't know if this help but thats what i can tell you ours did.
We are taking 4 8120s with macdon macdon 35' fd70s on the wheat harvest run this year. guessing we will be in the 25bu/ac to 75bu/ac range for the most part. I was just curious to see how much fuel id be burning per machine an hr. Thanks for the feedback!
- Concordes were small jet liners, carrying up to only 120 passengers, that's not much bigger than the small regional jets flying around and much smaller than the small Boeing 737's flown by Southwest and Airbus A319/20's flown by the likes of Delta and Frontier.
- Turbo-props aren't expanding as fast as small regional jets and the growing number of single engine jets forecasted to grow like wildfire (a turbine jet engine is so much simpler and more economical to use)
- Limos are too ordinary and don't cost enough or have the high-end features for today's rich and famous.
- No one is jumping at the gun to get in to farming like 30+ years ago and banks won't let just anyone farm...you must have plenty of capital to cover your rear for a couple years worth of failures (like own 1/3 of your acres you plan to farm).
- Fuel prices aren't having much of an influence. Full-size pick-up trucks ranked in the top 3 vehicle types traded for during the cash-for-clunkers campaign. No one was really looking to save much fuel going to a new truck. they just wanted top dollar for their clunker and a new vehicle.
- To most businesses (farms included), fuel expenses are a write-off. But it is nice not to have to pay as much for the stuff rather than waiting until the next business year to get a % of it back as a return.
Due to physics I find it hard to believe that a 40 ton machine can compete with a say 10 ton machine but if thats what the numbers show I suppose it must be true. I have owned a number of both conventional and rotaries and it seems every upgrade is harder on fuel especially since the pollution control came into effect.
The old 510 Massey with a Perkins was the best on fuel.
I dont know if its everywhere but there has been alot of interest in picking in some areas as of late since it takes more energy to dry wet corn than it does to till,plant and harvest combined.
I wonder why energy costs per acre are higher now than half a century ago even though no-till is so common. Anybody ever thought of what happens if natural gas comes in short supply as not doubt it will.
No bashing...just something to think on
That's quite a range, I was going to suggest a ratio of 2.5 to 1 top to bottom fuel use range.
It does show the wildly varying conditions not only field to field, area to area and year to year.
Graf 1 shows fuel consumptiom by lyter per hour depending on speed or mas flow (kilos per second)
Graf 2 shows consumption by lyters per ton of grain.
At least in our conditions the best result of 9120 with 30" header in wheat where at spede 6,5 km/h less then 2l/t. the looses and grain damage was smallest at this speed as well
hope it helps
yes it is correct. but any how the optimum is in the point where is a lowest consumption liter/ton
We doe the research every season with local AG university have those graphs in different seasons and crops have some where for 8010 as well but in general trend is the same
for egzample this is grain loss from same combine same day same field
Thanks again, very interesting data.
It's data like this that takes all the fun out of "my brand X machine only uses
half the fuel of my neighbor's brand Y machine across the road".
Who else has data like this?
I thought so.
Doe not want to start color war ore something so lets keep it this way X & Y and you may see that one line is much shorter that means the other brand was not able to go any faster
Great point about fuel per acre being the real number to look at. I also like to look at the bushels harvested per gallon of fuel. That really gives you an idea of the harvesting efficiency of a machine.
Great point about fuel per acre being the real number to look at. I also like to look at the bushels harvested per gallon of fuel. That really gives you an idea of the harvesting efficiency of a machine.
I agree the fuel use per hour, by itself, is useless.
I can see knowing use per area is good to know your costs.
But acres don't pay the bills, the crops do.
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