Agriculture Technology Podcast Episode 192 | Self-Propelled Forage Harvesters with Guest Jason Artz
hi I'm Tony Kramer your host of the agriculture technology podcast and I'm sitting down with agriculture technology and Equipment experts to help you enhance your operation for today tomorrow and into the future in this episode I talk with Jason Arts about John Deere self-propelled Forge Harvesters with that let's dive into the show like I said I'm here with Jason Arts to talk about John Deere Forge Harvesters we are current currently out in the field at a Technology field day that we are putting on uh as Rio equipment companies so uh a unique recording uh opportunity to uh talk Forge Harvesters so before we get started Jason let me hear uh why don't you tell our listeners a little bit about who you are uh some of your background and how you got to where you are today thanks for having me um like I said uh my name is Jason Arts uh previous before I took on this product position specialist for the self pel Forge Harvesters foro I was a technician out of our Aberdine location uh I was there for 15 years I supported the self-propelled Forge Harvesters pretty much for all of Midwest egg in RDO um I covered five states I've even been in had the opportunity to go to our Southern California stores to help support them um with my role as a technician uh with building the relationship I had with our customers in the service end of it Rdio decided to take our self-propelled Forge harvesting uh business to the next level and now we're pursuing the sales service and parts and along with that we with the technology that we can offer with these machines yeah so you've been around uh Forge Harvesters for quite a while you did the service technician role for quite a bit so you've got a pretty uh pretty robust knowledge with these self-propelled forage Harvesters why don't we start before we dive into the technology let's just talk a little bit about the background of John Deere Forge Harvesters I know we were talking before we hit the record button here uh in the past they offered a pull type Forge Harvester um they've got a very robust line of self-propelled Forge Harvesters let's just give our listeners a little background on uh where the the timeline of John Deere Forge Harvesters has been and where it's at today John Deere has been in the industry for over 50 years uh we celebrated our 50th year last year with the self- peled forge Harvesters uh starting out with our pole types uh and and then working into the self-propelled lineup uh the we no longer offer a self-propelled forage uh Harvester through deer we feel that our self-propelled units are the best fit for our Growers and our producers so our machines started out in the early years with our 5000 series machines they were pretty much a pull type with an engine at that time so then we moved up into our 6,000 series machines our 7,000 series machines our 8,000 series machines into our current models right now are 9,000 Series machines so as we change ched over the years technolog is's always growing so in order to keep up with that deer and RDO have been following suit yeah that's a great kind of brief overview brief history we continue to move forward with the self-propelled Forge Harvester lineup I want to talk now um you know kind of dive into some of the technology we uh there's a lot of operations throughout history that uh over time we we kind of implement more and more technology ology and I know Forge Harvesters the hay and Forge industry as a whole has started to adopt more and more technology as we've gone through so the first one I kind of want to touch on uh is is kind of our basic one you know back in the late 90s early 2000s are tractors combines things like that got uh got our auto track functionality got row sense in the combines um let's just talk about that uh with Forge Harvesters having some of those same capabilities early 7,000 series machines that's really when we started with our autot track system in them um when we developed some rosense with our self-propelled Forge Harvesters back in them days uh we really didn't need a display or a receiver in the machines to actually auto track or or row sense down the row um they use their own integrated steering system with uh the feeler gauges on the head so more like a universal row Sense on it then we moved into the mid mid to late um 2000s we got the technology going to where we introduced our green star system into them and then we can start doing more um AB lines passes adaptive curves stuff like that with them and as that technology grows along with the repe repeatability and the accuracy of our receivers and stuff working with it it was a it was brought in that Rose sense and Auto cheack or GPS together work a lot better so we can configure our machines different ways on how we can track down that field as we go pass by pass we can set it up under row or GPS or we can go row GPS or GPS row so let's say you're going down to cornfield you get to a wet area that was not not planted it's going to lock onto the GPS and rather than your rose sense so and that follows suit all the way up to our current models right now our 8000s and 9000s do require a row sense activation and a rece display in and a receiver in integrated into it yeah that's really neat to hear that the the self-propelled for Harvesters had been has been utilizing or they have been utilizing that uh Rose Sense Technology for quite a while so now moving into the8 to 9,000 Series 9,000 being the latest um they're implementing more green star technology more more pieces to the package which brings me to my next piece you know this is really an important one so all throughout agriculture we talk about data collection we talk about uh using that data to make educated decisions and with forage Harvesters really I mean the biggest thing obviously we're we're we're calculating tons how many tons of forage are we pumping out how much feed are we producing off of that field but the other piece to that is quality of feed so we have the Harvest lab 3000 sensor that uh for a number of years now has been mounted on that uh that chute that spout uh going off into the trucks and the carts let's talk a little bit about the importance of the Harvest lab 3000 sensor and why we UTI ize that and what we can do with the data collected off of that so our Harvest lab 3000 it's not only just a moisture sensor helping to measure our tons and our throughput through the machine so we're taking light waves using our our our sensor on these and we're sending over 3,000 signals per second measuring this crop going through this this spout not only can we do moisture with it but we can also have a constituent section sensing activation for this and uh it's an added on activation to where we can do our dry matter our starches our sugars ndf and our our Ash we can actually see what across the field where that is at um we can also take the same Harvest lab 3000 out of season we can actually take it off the machine we can put it in our scale house or our feed room or in our shop office and we can actually put a tabletop system on this to where we can actually go right to our bunker grab a sample do an analysis on that bag of feed that you grab right out of your pile that day and we can determine working with our nutritionist what our best feed ration and is to where a lot of times before guys would have to take a sample put in a ziplock bag send it off to Dairyland four days five days later you get the data back you talk with the nutritionist then you make your best judgments on your feed rations meanwhile while you're doing that you're continually taking out of your pile or your bunker or your Silo well you're 10 feet 15 foot into it your rations have changed to where we can actually instantaneously use that so that's a huge benefit that we can use on that with this also this same sensor we can actually use it for manure sensing applications so we can put it on drag liners or slurry wagons we can see how much nitrogen we're putting out in the field we can actually control the output of it through speed and pressure there is no flow meters or nothing at the current time or rate controllers but we can actually do speed and pressure and we can put it out there we can use the data that we use to put it out in the field to where we can go come spring for a second pass or application of nitrogen to variable rate then yeah I know there's a lot of great solutions to utilizing the Harvest lab 3000 I know uh you talk about obviously on the forge Harvester shoots uh we're getting the the different measurements you talk about putting it on manur spreaders to be able to monitor the amount of nitrogen and nutrients that we're putting out in the field I know uh just recently John Deere introduced the package to be able to put it on combines as well uh were able to uh monitor or document the oil levels in certain crops and the starch levels in certain crops so it's a a really cool piece to the the uh a really cool addition to the amount of data that we can collect and start to make educated decisions off of now I know in in conjunction with that Harvest lab 300 sensor John Deere's got some other technologies that kind of work in conjunction with that let's tell the uh talk to our listeners a little bit more about the autolock system that our Forge Harvesters have so our autolock system which is um adjust the length of cut so when we're talking about length of cut that's the size of crop we're actually putting through this machine so we can work in conjunction with our moisture sensor our Harvest lab 3000 and we can set up parameters vers on moisture um high moisture low and an a targeted moisture and determine on different lengths of cut so let's say we have a dry matter of 45% we want to go a 9 mm length of cut or as our high and our low would be 25% and then we go a longer length of cut to where we're targeted is at 35 we go a 12 mm lengthy cut so we can as that machine goes down the field and we're taking them data points right from the Harvest lab we can actually um it'll automatically change the feed roll speed to get better quality and of of the of the crop that you're chopping it helps compaction in the bunker and higher quality of feed on the long run yeah and you you bring up a really good point there Jason it's not just the the feed coming off of the field and and what we're feeding to the livestock but it's also the being able to put it into the bunker properly store it uh store it effectively and uh and being able to utilize that feed over a long period of time so all of that uh comes into play when we talk about uh a good quality cut of uh of forage and being able to uh utilize it over a season uh is there any other pieces that that add into uh the John Deere solution and some of the Technologies with our our Harvest lab and what we're doing today we can also use our utilize our additive doses system on there so we can actually add our microorganisms directly into the crop as it's going through the machine to go onto the pile to help break down that and ferment that silage in the bunker or in the silo or wherever you have it and then we can it'll talk to the together in conjunction you can also set up your ounces per ton ounces per hour depending on whatever your preferred Target is as your moisture levels go up or down we can actually variable rate that into the crop stream now we talked a lot about uh cutting that crop up or or uh processing that forage and getting it into the truck which brings me to the next piece uh one of the the really cool parts of uh of the John Deere Forge Harvesters is the active fill system let's talk just briefly about active fill and how that can benefit an operator yeah our active fill system we use a two-dimensional cameras and it'll actually pick up the the unit that you're uh chopping into whether it's a wagon a tandem truck or a semi um it you can fill set it up for fill strategies you can load it front to back back to front or front to back to front you can do your uh 4 and a half fill percentages if you have a side dump trailer you want to blast to the outside wall you can fill that higher um the what's really nice about our active fill strategy is when we open up or punch a hole through the center of the field to where we're blowing straight back out of the machine it will actually see that trailer back there and keep that crop in that truck as it it'll move the spout and the spout flap to keep that crop in the truck yeah that's one of the cooler Technologies I've seen on on some John Deere equipment is the fact that it will move that spout around where it needs to based on where that truck is located and and uh all of that and help you load that uh that truck or trailer or or cart whatever you're doing um so it's really cool piece now the last one I want to touch on which I know is very important and uh uh very near and dear to uh us and the with the John Deere side of forage Harvesters but let's talk about kernel processors I know we've got a couple different options and when it comes to corn silage I know the the processing of the kernels is a very important piece so let's talk a little bit about our different options that we have there currently right now we have two different configurations for our kernel processors we've got a johnar premium KP which is for our lower tonnage lower horsepower machines so it's a John Deere kernel processor we run a nine and about a 9 and a 12 inch roll on them and we run a 32% speed differential or there's an optional 40% speed differential of the rolls um it's for our probably our 6,000 or 8,000 series machines more than uh our our 9,000 Series in our 9,000 Series machines that we require more horsepower more tons per hour more throughput for them we offer a John Deere extreme KP it's got a 10-in roll on it or we just got introduced last fall for the fall of 2022 we can order 11in KP rolls so we got more surface area for that processing to happen more longevity of the rolls them run at a 50 % speed differential on the rolls and we used air induced oil to lubricate our bearings on them and we have a manual adjust on them along with bearing temperature monitoring that we can monitor right through our display on them so with all the years that you've been working with the self-propelled Forge Harvesters I imagine you've come across some customers or or some situations that have been really good success stories uh whether it's a a technology adopted one of those Technologies we talked about uh customer adopted that or maybe they were a competitive customer and now they're running a John Deere selfpropelled Forge Harvester would you like to share one of those success stories with us just something that put a smile on your face and made you feel good at the end of the day one that really comes to mind I had a grower that was running a deer machine at the time and you're in these machines all day long I mean you're running 10 12 hour days in these things and there's a lot going on on you're driving the machine you're running the spout there's trucks running everywhere there's a lot of fatigue with running these machines integrating our technology in there with whether it's row sense with the auto steer um running uh the active fill control that takes a lot of the fatigue out of the out of the operator at the time what really the grower really liked with the technology is is how we can document all this stuff and we can run it through the Operation Center we got the real-time data we can transfer in there that helped him with his billing process before he was just kind of guessing on tonnage he was kind of guessing on what he had for through put on it um what he was running for fuel per hour things like that and that's how he was billing people and he actually found out that he was hurting himself because he wasn't charging enough um he was actually doing more than what he actually thought so over the two years by having the technology he he figured he paid for all his new technology twice over so that's key on that yeah that's a a great reason to implement technology and a a really awesome success story um talking from the customers perspective to be able to continue to to grow and Thrive with their business of of chopping forage out there and and uh being able to properly build the customers that they're chopping for so great to hear how the integrated John Deere and GreenStar technology helped that grower continue to move forward be more confident in the uh the job that they're doing and the customers that they're working with now of course one of the burning questions Jason is there there's other Forge Harvesters out there on the market obviously but uh we as a John Deere dealership of course we want you to buy the green and yellow ones the John Deere Green yellow ones the question I want to ask you Jason is why what sets us apart from the competition is it the technology is it the quality of machine what pieces would make a customer purchase a John Deere self-propelled forage Harvester over the competition the top three the technology and the way we can utilize our data com from the machine the userfriendly everything's uniform a lot of my Growers have John de equipment so everything can talk everything you know they're familiar with all the display how you can run through it everything's one entity the other end of it is we've got competitor customers that are competitors that actually run John Deere GreenStar system in their machines whether it's an ATU or set up documentation using the third party through to get into our Operation Center and I think the most the final one the best one I as I'm kind of biased but as a being a technician for 15 years whether it's a Crome New Holland Claus John Deere machine they're all built to do the same thing on the end where it comes down to as a service support and the use and ease of the machine so silage chopping run the silage Choppers everybody thinks it's just like combine no combining you have a three-month window silage shopping you have a two-e window so when these machines are down the need to be up and going so supporting them it it takes a lot of team effort all around and the more simplified where you can make things the better it'll be for our grower and our customer absolutely and that falls right in line with all of our other product lines you know the the downtime is what really hurts so being able to have service support um being able to have that local dealership there to help you through the the down times or the when when the machines need the the help if somebody wants to learn more about forage Harvesters they'd like to talk to someone or maybe go online and see something where can they go who can they talk to you can go into rdl's website we've got links in there to where we you can go into uh our sales bulletins and stuff like that but you can reach out to any of your local John Deere dealerships uh for information on them um as we grow this there'll be more and more people that'll have knowledge on these a lot of our uh areas don't have the self-propelled Forge Harvesters in their area but we're they're kind of regional um right now we're working on with developing a strategy and a game plan to so there'll be multiple people at multiple locations to support and suit your needs on that so just contact your local sales department or service department and we can can connect you right with the individuals or questions you need to have answered Jason I just want to thank you for taking the time out here at our field technology days or te Technology field days um get getting the chance to uh talk to you you guys got your hay and forage uh station set up out here a lot of customers asking a lot of good questions so wanted to take this opportunity to sit down and chat with you on uh what we have to offer through the John Deere self-propelled Forge Harvest so thanks again for doing this yeah thank you thank for having me please take a moment to subscribe to this podcast if you haven't already you can subscribe to the show on the many different podcasting apps that we're streaming this out to it's on Apple podcast Google podcast as well as many others while you're out there drop us a review we'd love to hear what you think about the show and finally make sure to follow audio equipment company on Facebook Instagram and X or formerly known as Twitter and catch all of our latest videos on YouTube you can also follow me on X again formerly known as Twitter @ RDO Tony k
2023-10-25 07:26
