The first farmer in Australia to order a John Deere X9 harvester has put the machine through its paces and experienced firsthand the productivity gains it offers.
'Work smarter, not harder' was the philosophy behind Michael Slater's decision to purchase the machine sight unseen, for use on his family-owned farm at Cummins in South Australia.
And after shaving more than 50 separator hours off the time normally spent on the header during the recent harvest, he's had no cause to regret his decision - even if harvest did finish later than normal.
"We finished on January 6, but that was because we had quite a wet start and a cool harvest," Mr Slater said.
"What we really wanted from the new header was a bit more productivity and to be able to get through harvest as quickly as possible, and the X9 harvester certainly delivered."
It was a rewarding season for the Slaters, taking off 1750 hectares of crop including 900ha of wheat, 500ha of canola and the balance in faba beans, thanks to a wet start to the year.
Their typical average rainfall is around 440mm but by the end of February 2022, they had received nearly half that.
A wet period through winter meant they couldn't traffic any of the paddocks and relied on aircraft to treat crops with fungicides, and by the end of the year they'd measured 700mm of rain, providing perfect testing grounds for the new X9 harvester.
The X series harvesters feature a wide feeder house, dual separator, and the industry's largest cleaning shoe, all of which work together to improve crop flow and increase harvesting capacity.
The Cummins family brought in the X9 1000 this year to replace a John Deere S780, seeing an opportunity to elevate their harvest capacity and, ultimately, speed.
"Generally, in the S780 we were doing on average 350 separator hours, but in the X9 harvester we did 293 hours, so the new header is actually running at around 30 per cent more capacity than our old one," Mr Slater said.
"We're only eight kilometres away from the grain receival site in Cummins and it was quite a cool harvest, so we didn't have big 14-hour reaping days, more like eight hours, so the logistics ran smoothly."
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The hinged draper front of the X9 1000 has wider Grain Saver Belts that have a raised 'cross hair' pattern to stop the loss of small grains like canola.
The Slaters windrowed their canola so opted to use a John Deere BP15 Belt Pickup Platform on the X9 1000, capable of increasing feed auger speed by 20pc for canola.
"There was also some wind damage and crop lodging at harvest, but the 12.2 metre (40 foot) hinged draper front handled the conditions brilliantly," Mr Slater said.
"The losses were miniscule. We just set the header up for each crop and the front, using the finger tine reels, did a marvellous job of picking the grain up off the ground.
"I loved the way the hinged draper front followed the ground too. We have a bit of undulating country and it followed it beautifully, it was really a case of set and forget."
Mr Slater appreciated the ride quality of the dual tyres, and said he was unexpectedly impressed with the fuel economy.
"I suppose I went in with an open mind and no expectations because it's all relative to productivity - more horsepower means more fuel, so I wasn't worried about it. But I was very happy with the fuel economy," Mr Slater said.
"The harvester is also quite stable even with the hinged draper front and a full grain tank, and the StarFire guidance system is very simple, once you know what you're doing. I liked the dual side-by-side rotor system, it's simple and delivers an even distribution of material across the cleaning shoe.
"The new generation cab is very quiet and extremely comfortable. It's as good as sitting in a car."
