experienced opinions, bullet vs conventional

Hey guys and gals,

so my dad is talking about paying off the 9600 we got 3 years ago and trading it off so we don't trade up with an even larger deere note.

He talked to the local dealer we bought it and have it serviced at and they were talkin about giving us $55K for it.

We were wondering though...a local "i have to have the newest machinery avaiable" type of guy we're decent friends with said there's no comparison betweent he bullet rotor and regular rotor.

We we're eventually looking at 800hr 9650STS combines for next year while keeping the same heads so we can fly through the fields and so we dont have to upgrade planters and such to accomodate a larger than 6 row head.

so is the bullet rotor really worth that much more money to invest in? We figured with the 70series becoming more available for next year we should be able to pickup a nice low hour 9660STS for pretty cheap and all the kinks/glitches would be worked out of it.


So...is it worth the money for a 60 series bullet rotor compared to a conventional rotor 50/60 series STS? Also...did they make a 9560/9660 bullet rotor?


Main reason i ask, is we can pickup a 9650STS with 800hrs for $99,000 out the door, and was wondering if the bullet rotor is worth the $140,000 price tag they all seem to carry? Does it just have more cleaning area and seperate the trash better and allow for faster field speeds? Rotors are all new to us...we've been walker machines for the past 3 generations and i this is really the first we've talked about them since we're slowed down doing green stem soybeans....

Thanks,
Dave

Dave, I have been talking to Ebert about those very issues, too. Ebert, keep the 9600! That's still a very sound bine!

Quote:we just can't justify a $60,000 used price tag on 12 row heads and dont like the idea of 8row's with the field being planted in 12rows. If we had a 24row we wouldn't mind, and we're tossing the idea around, but im sure it'll be a couple years..

we really like the 6row because we never have to take it off for transport...8row's and 12 rows you' pretty much have to around here because the roadsides aren't big enough to accomodate two farmers going opposite directions on the same road.

i have to agree with davedan as well.

also if daddy is that worried about having wide and narrow middles with different width planter vs headers. then why dont you invest in an rtk system and eliminate them and be able to spread your $$$ investment over more acres and time used than put to small of a head on a bigger combine.

why get a newer/bigger tractor and use the same small plows-------doesnt make sense

cuz we'd rather feel like we're doing something, only one guy in our entire county has autosteer (not counting the fertilizer companies) and he said he just reads the newspaper all day.

I'm not bashing anyone, but to me, thats not farming. If i spend an extra $20 in wasted fuel because i overlap 4" on average throughout a whole field, then so be it...atleast im staying alert to the objects ahead of me, and when something breaks because of looking back all the time.

The 9600 is a sound machine, but with it nearing 2000hrs, its getting time to trade it off relatively soon like we've done with all of our other combines (9500, 9510, whatever we had before i was born). We never plan on owning a "new" combine as theres really no need for them unless your a custom harvester or like to "show-off" but we'd like to step into a newer model with more capability and is still relatively current. Yea the hours might seem relatively low, but its been through ALOT of corn most of it being low 20% moisture corn which adds a little more wear from what we've seen. Also, our 9600 is 10years old and we can't use for as big of a tax-break anymore since we'll only have one payment left after this year is over. We just paid off 4 fields we purchased 6 years ago and have a little extra money we need to see gone so uncle sam doesn't get greedy for next years taxes. Like most farmers, we don't buy new/newer machinery because we need it, but because the more we buy, the less taxes we have to pay and the more net worth we have overall, so the larger bank amounts we can borrow for buying more land.

It's getting time to sharpen the pencil and go through figures again and see where we can cut expenses to make more money, but keep it away from uncle sam if you see what im saying.

Quote:we'd like to, but are tryign to figure out how much better the bullet rotor is. We run over 140,000 bushel of corn through our walker every year and it just seems like its getting to the point of major repair.

our 9600 has 2610engine hours and 1590sep hrs

Wow....Its hard to believe that its wore out at those hours. We just traded our 1997 2188 with 3128 hours for a 2005 8010 with 750 hours, and it wasn't wore out . We just wanted to upgrade. If a Deere is wore out at those hours than that doesn't say much for them.

As for the head thing.....We plant with a 12 row and used to harvest with a 8 row with no problems. We did this for 3-4 years after we bought the 1200 planter. We got a 12 row head now on the 8010 though, simply because any smaller on that size combine is a bit of a joke..........Also we don't have RTK we just drive straight. ....we can't afford RTK.....It would be nice though.....

As for the Rotor difference in the Green machines.....Can't help you all I see is red...J/K.. ....Seriously last Green machine i ran was a 94 9600 on a harvest run.

Quote:
Quote:maybe this will helpen you sharpen your pencil http://www.deere.com/en_US/ag/servicesupport/ams/amscalculator.html

That is a good exercise to go through. Great marketing tool and often an eye opener.
ebertfarms, I see you are only 19 which would help account for your "but to me, thats not farming" comment. The fact is ANYBODY will be more efficient and less fatigued using auto steering. "only one guy in our entire county has autosteer" Really? A traveler recently told me he thought there was more fields auto steered then not. And as soon as you figure out how to read the newspaper all day and farm let me know. I gotta buy a bigger newspaper!
You sound like you have a future in accounting (on the farm I mean). Nice to see some one this age have a passion for both.

Don

Great Don.....1 for you.......19 says it all.........

big..i think you just have a grudge because of comments i've made concerning you.

From what the local deere dealer has told us we're looking at a hefty repair bill...they welded a bunch of stuff this summer so we can get by this year and bring it in this winter so they can start working on it. I know your probably thinking "save money and do it yourself"...the problem is we dont have a forklift, overhead crane, the specialty tools im sure you'd use 1 time if you did it yourself, etc. So we just pay the dealer we've done business with for the past 60years to do it for us, and they take care of us when we have problems.

The 19 thing, it seems like everyone thinks that someone who is younger than, lets say 25 has no clue what their doing. I love it personally, im not saying i know everything about farming...i know more than probably most my age do for spring/fall seasons, but as the business aspect goes i'm clueless which is why im still working full-time under my dad and not him working for me. he's teaching me a certain area every year, and in 5-6 years when he hands the farm over, i'll have a solid idea of what it takes to run an operation and the financial responsibility that goes along with it.

I'm not saying more farmers aren't switching over to autosteer either, but im dead serious that only one person in our county currently uses an autosteer device. There are alot of lightbars out there, i have one on order that will hopefully come in before tillage starts in 2 weeks. I understand that sub-inch accuracy is great, especially for larger operations because it saves alot more time and fuel (the king ranch for example)...but what does it mean at the end of the field? you got to plant 3 more rows of corn and saved $15 in diesel?

Maybe its because i am a young farmer and have more energy, but with fall tillage i'm out there until 3-4am slowly but surely making my 18' passes one at a time until the fields are done. I find it more peaceful to run that late at night, as soon as 8pm comes the phone calls finally seem to stop and its just the tractor, 3/4mile rows, and my ipod tearing up the earth. Sure i get out of the tractor to give me a bit of a wakeup of the frigid yet soothing air and relieve myself but i dont mind.

I input average costs...with my labor, overlapping 4ft in the spring, and 2ft in the fall (the crumbler is 1.5ft shorter than the farthest disc leveler, so i know if it was next to the already tillaed ground its overlapped roughly 2ft. With the last tank of diesel we had filled at $2.40/gallon it came out to an annual savings of $677 and 8hrs of labor.

I'm not sure about seed cost, and we don't put any of our own chemicals on except for aztec in the spring when we plant.

Quote:big..i think you just have a grudge because of comments i've made concerning you.

From what the local deere dealer has told us we're looking at a hefty repair bill...they welded a bunch of stuff this summer so we can get by this year and bring it in this winter so they can start working on it. I know your probably thinking "save money and do it yourself"...the problem is we dont have a forklift, overhead crane, the specialty tools im sure you'd use 1 time if you did it yourself, etc. So we just pay the dealer we've done business with for the past 60years to do it for us, and they take care of us when we have problems.

The 19 thing, it seems like everyone thinks that someone who is younger than, lets say 25 has no clue what their doing. I love it personally, im not saying i know everything about farming...i know more than probably most my age do for spring/fall seasons, but as the business aspect goes i'm clueless which is why im still working full-time under my dad and not him working for me. he's teaching me a certain area every year, and in 5-6 years when he hands the farm over, i'll have a solid idea of what it takes to run an operation and the financial responsibility that goes along with it.

I'm not saying more farmers aren't switching over to autosteer either, but im dead serious that only one person in our county currently uses an autosteer device. There are alot of lightbars out there, i have one on order that will hopefully come in before tillage starts in 2 weeks. I understand that sub-inch accuracy is great, especially for larger operations because it saves alot more time and fuel (the king ranch for example)...but what does it mean at the end of the field? you got to plant 3 more rows of corn and saved $15 in diesel?

Maybe its because i am a young farmer and have more energy, but with fall tillage i'm out there until 3-4am slowly but surely making my 18' passes one at a time until the fields are done. I find it more peaceful to run that late at night, as soon as 8pm comes the phone calls finally seem to stop and its just the tractor, 3/4mile rows, and my ipod tearing up the earth. Sure i get out of the tractor to give me a bit of a wakeup of the frigid yet soothing air and relieve myself

but i dont mind.

I input average costs...with my labor, overlapping 4ft in the spring, and 2ft in the fall (the crumbler is 1.5ft shorter than the farthest disc leveler, so i know if it was next to the already tillaed ground its overlapped roughly 2ft. With the last tank of diesel we had filled at $2.40/gallon it came out to an annual savings of $677 and 8hrs of labor.

I'm not sure about seed cost, and we don't put any of our own chemicals on except for aztec in the spring when we plant.

No just the comments here about thats not farming..... ......Also we don't use RTK for anything......Lightbar only in the sprayer......We just do it the old fashioned way just drive straight......