Saw New Deere Cutting Wheat

For all of you Deere guys out there...I saw the new Deere combine cutting wheat with a custom crew next to us in Western KS. It happened to be cutting right along the road when we drove by. I had to do a double take to make sure I had actually seen what I thought I had...the decal showed it to be a 9870. My brother took a few pictures (I will put them up when/if he figures out how to get them off his phone and emailed to me) It was almost comical to see the reaction of the guy running the machine when we broke out our cameras...it looked like he was panicking. I have to say it was pretty impressive to see up close. I was very surprised at how quiet it ran...much quieter than any Deere I've been around. Looked like a 40 ft draper on the front of it. They had a line of trucks parked on the road so we stopped and talked to one of the drivers. He told us that the operator was actually an employee from Deere and he confirmed what we had expected...he did NOT like us stopping to take pictures of his combine. He was all over the radio trying to get us out of there. The driver had some interesting things to say. According him, not a whole lot of changes have been made to new machine. The biggest change is the new Tier 4 engine which he claimed burned 5 g/h more than the 9870's it was running with! Ouch! The only other thing he said was different besides the engine was new plastic and redesigned cab.

I have to say it was a pretty impressive machine..I like the new look. I'm not sure I like the fuel consumption on the new Tier 4 engines though...I'm affraid this is what we're all headed to