Biggest change in farm equipt 50's - 80's?

Paul Wald · Jul 6, 2011

I was chatting with a friend about farm equipment. What do you think was the biggest change from the 50's moving forward. Air Conditioning, cabs, compaction reduction, transmissions, harvesting, fuels? Any particular equipment that made a transition from antique to what is used today? Any input would be greatly appreciated, Thanks!

SouthernFarmall · Jul 6, 2011

In my opinion: Horsepower! In the early 50s, a Farmall M was a big tractor. Something like 35 horsepower. By the early 80s, the 1566 is a big tractor - about 160 horsepower! 4WD also came on strong over this time period, so that might be a large contender as well.

SF

IaGary · Jul 6, 2011

The biggest change was the size of the equipment.

Going from a 2 row planter to 12,16,24 row planters to allow one man to farm many more acres.

Same with the harvest equipment growing in size to allow one man to do more.

Gary

Fullers Farmalls · Jul 6, 2011

Live hydraulics/pto... By far one of the best things to ever hit the equipment world. Being able to use a bucket or lift a rear blade while having the clutch in is a great thing. Trust me after using a tractor without live hydraulics and PTO and using one that does. It makes the old seem extremely outdates

Paul Wald · Jul 6, 2011

Are you saying my exhaust powered lift-all is out of date?

Fullers Farmalls · Jul 6, 2011

You'll have to forgive me. I did forget about the exhaust lifts. I've never seen one. So I do forget about them. But I also said PTO. haha. But you are correct sir, I did forget about the exhaust lift.

Paul Wald · Jul 6, 2011

I have plenty of manifolds, valves, and compression tanks, all rusted and shot. I would like to see one work myself.

Paul Wald · Jul 6, 2011

I am trending towards the 4wd myself. 200 horse 2 wheel drive = compaction

VicS · Jul 6, 2011

With out a doubt Sound Gard Cab on a John Deere. Made JD number one. Also a 7000 JD planter with finger pickup.

Anonymous-0 · Jul 6, 2011

No question, Roundup. No till drills and planters, and spray equipment. It changed how millions of acres are farmed.

Kansas4010 · Jul 6, 2011

Prices

Tony in Mass. · Jul 6, 2011

I have to second that. Live pto, live hydro, that was the new generation. Everything after that was business or comfort

colekicker · Jul 6, 2011

From the 50's until now, precision farming. There is no way someone farming in the 50's would have ever dreamed that their tractor would be controlled via satellite, their planter would be able to apply variable rate prescription, harvest with a combine to sub-inch accuracy over the same area they planted and watch a yield monitor screen.

Anonymous-0 · Jul 6, 2011

The question was till the 1980's. Who was using GPS, auto steer, variable rate application methods, combine yield monitors, computer mapping, ect in the 1980's ?

Phil in Pa · Jul 7, 2011

The replacing of the moldboard plow with chisel and no-till in my opinion.

Paul Wald · Jul 7, 2011

That was one of my thoughts too. I told my friend you don't see 32 row cultivators! Herbicides ended a lot of tillage.

Mike Aylward · Jul 7, 2011

In my opinion the biggest change in farm equipment was not brought about by farm equipment. I think the advent of herbicides changed everything. It used to be a man was only able to farm as many acres as he had a reasonable chance of cultivating. Now that he doesn't have to do that anymore it's now limited to how many acres he can plant and harvest. I believe this is the major reason why farms have grown so much in the last several years. Mike

oldtanker · Jul 7, 2011

I think the biggest changes were brought about by federal changes in farm labor pay and fuel prices. Late 60's and early 70's farmers said "anyone with a tractor over 100HP was showing off". They may have had 3 tractor or more running 90 HP but labor was cheap! My BIL's father had an 826 and 3 560's. He would plow with him on one tractor, BIL on another and a 3rd being run by a hired operator. When labor rates went up he went to bigger tractors and stopped hiring help. He went to round bales for the same reason. Another decision was based on fuel prices. You could till more acres with less fuel. A friend has a smaller Stiger. When he was chisel plowing with his 1586 he was using about 2.2 gallons an acre.....the Stiger burns about 1.4 per acre. Fuel prices also spurred the change over to no/low till and using chemicals.

Those changes triggered several things too. Smaller older farmers quitting which made more land available to the bigger guys and as tractors got bigger and tillage requirements got less one person could could farm a lot more acres That triggered the demand for bigger harvesting equipment.

Rick

Anonymous-0 · Jul 7, 2011

Price....

RodinNS · Jul 7, 2011

In that timeframe, in relation to tractors... I would say the biggest change was power. You went from a tractor that probably topped around 60 HP in 1950 to several models topping 200 in the row crop class and near 800 in the FWD class by that time.
Cabs would be the second biggest change, particularly on Deere's part where you went from a 2 lunger with hand clutch and pan seat all the way to a reasonably well designed, ergonomic, comfortable SoundGuard safety cab on the 40 series. Big, big difference there.
Transmission technology would probably be a close third with the successful implimentation of the power shift by Deere in the mid 60's... but otherwise gear transmissions didn't change much in that time other than the addition of 2 and 3 speed power shifting.
Hydraulic systems also made some major advances in that time frame; again particularly on the part of Deere... but I think really the most advanced and reliable systems didn't come until the early-mid 90's.

Rod

Biggest change in farm equipt 50's - 80's?

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