The modern combine harvester, simply combine, is a machine designed to harvest a variety of cultivated seeds. Combine harvesters are one of the most economically important labour-saving inventions, significantly reducing the fraction of the population engaged in agriculture. Among the crops harvested with a combine are wheat, rice, oats, rye, barley, corn (maize), sorghum, millet, soybeans, flax (linseed), sunflowers and rapeseed. The separated straw is then either chopped onto the field and ploughed back in, or laid out in rows, ready to be baled and used for bedding and cattle feed.
A reaper is a farm implement or person that reaps crops at harvest when they are ripe. Usually the crop involved is a cereal grass. The first documented reaping machines were Gallic reapers that were used in Roman times in what would become modern-day France. The Gallic reaper involved a comb which collected the heads, with an operator knocking the grain into a box for later threshing.
The reaper-binder, or binder, is a farm implement that improved upon the simple reaper. The binder was invented in 1872 by Charles Baxter Withington, a jeweler from Janesville, Wisconsin. In addition to cutting the small-grain crop, a binder also 'binds' the stems into bundles or sheaves. These sheaves are usually then 'shocked' into A-shaped conical stooks, resembling small tipis, to allow the grain to dry for several days before being picked up and threshed.
Threshing, or thrashing, is the process of loosening the edible part of grain from the straw to which it is attached. It is the step in grain preparation after reaping. Threshing does not remove the bran from the grain.
A steam tractor is a tractor powered by a steam engine which is used for pulling.
The Case Corporation was a manufacturer of agricultural machinery and construction equipment. Founded, in 1842, by Jerome Increase Case as the J. I. Case Threshing Machine Company, it operated under that name for most of a century. For another 66 years it was the J. I. Case Company, and was often called simply Case. In the late 19th century, Case was one of America's largest builders of steam engines, producing self-propelled portable engines, traction engines and steam tractors. It was a major producer of threshing machines and other harvesting equipment. The company also produced various machinery for the U.S. military. In the 20th century, Case was among the ten largest builders of farm tractors for many years. In the 1950s its construction equipment line became its primary focus, with agricultural business second.
New Holland is a global full-line agricultural machinery manufacturer founded in New Holland, Pennsylvania, and now based in Turin, Italy. New Holland's products include tractors, combine harvesters, balers, forage harvesters, self-propelled sprayers, haying tools, seeding equipment, hobby tractors, utility vehicles and implements, and grape harvesters. Originally formed as the New Holland Machine Company in 1895, the company is now owned by CNH Industrial N. V., a company incorporated in the Netherlands.
Threshing (thrashing) was originally "to tramp or stamp heavily with the feet" and was later applied to the act of separating out grain by the feet of people or oxen and still later with the use of a flail. A threshing floor is of two main types: 1) a specially flattened outdoor surface, usually circular and paved, or 2) inside a building with a smooth floor of earth, stone or wood where a farmer would thresh the grain harvest and then winnow it. Animal and steam powered threshing machines from the nineteenth century onward made threshing floors obsolete. The outdoor threshing floor was either owned by the entire village or by a single family, and it was usually located outside the village in a place exposed to the wind.
The Advance-Rumely Company of La Porte, Indiana was an American pioneering producer of many types of agricultural machinery, most notably threshing machines and large tractors. Started in 1853 manufacturing threshers and later moved on to steam engines. Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Co. purchased Advance-Rumley in 1931. The company's main works would become what was later known as the "La Porte plant".
The Avery Company, founded by Robert Hanneman Avery, was an American farm tractor manufacturer famed for its undermounted engine which resembled a railroad engine more than a conventional farm steam engine. Avery founded the farm implement business after the Civil War. His company built a large line of products, including steam engines, beginning in 1891. The company started with a return flue design and later adapted the undermount style, including a bulldog design on the smokebox door. Their design was well received by farmers in central Illinois. They expanded their market nationwide and overseas until the 1920s, when they failed to innovate and the company faltered. They manufactured trucks for a period of time, and then automobiles. until they finally succumbed to an agricultural crisis and the Depression.
The Gleaner Manufacturing Company is an American manufacturer of combine harvesters. Gleaner has been a popular brand of combine harvester particularly in the Midwestern United States for many decades, first as an independent firm, and later as a division of Allis-Chalmers. The Gleaner brand continues today under the ownership of AGCO.
Agricultural machinery relates to the mechanical structures and devices used in farming or other agriculture. There are many types of such equipment, from hand tools and power tools to tractors and the countless kinds of farm implements that they tow or operate. Diverse arrays of equipment are used in both organic and nonorganic farming. Especially since the advent of mechanised agriculture, agricultural machinery is an indispensable part of how the world is fed. Agricultural machinery can be regarded as part of wider agricultural automation technologies, which includes the more advanced digital equipment and robotics. While agricultural robots have the potential to automate the three key steps involved in any agricultural operation, conventional motorized machinery is used principally to automate only the performing step where diagnosis and decision-making are conducted by humans based on observations and experience.
Stripper was a type of harvesting machine common in Australia in the late 19th and early 20th century. John Ridley is now accepted as its inventor, though John Wrathall Bull argued strongly for the credit.
Case IH Axial Flow Combines are a type of combine harvester that has been manufactured by International Harvester, and later Case International, Case Corporation and CNH Global, used by farmers to harvest a wide range of grains around the world.
The Selbstfahrer is the first self-propelled combine harvester by Claas. In total, 19.465 units were produced from 1952 to 1963. The German name Selbstfahrer literally means Self-propeller and in the German agricultural language, it refers to a combine harvester or agricultural machine that can propel itself. Initially, the name of the Selbstfahrer was Hercules; due to an already registered trademark with the name Hercules, the combine harvester was renamed SF for Selbstfahrer in 1953. In contemporary brochures, the Selbstfahrer is called Claas Selbstfahrer Type S.F.55. It was targeted at agricultural contractors and large farms in Europe. In 1961, the Selbstfahrer was succeeded by the Matador. However, it was kept in production until 1963.
The S-4 «Stalinets», is a self-propelled combine harvester, made by several different combine harvester plants in the former Soviet Union, from 1947 until 1955. In 1955, the modernised variant, called the S-4M, was introduced; it was put out of production in 1958. In total, 29,582 units were built. In former East Germany, the S-4 combine was built under licence by the IFA as the Fortschritt E 170 series, from 1954 until 1967. Unlike the original S-4, which is powered by an otto engine, the Fortschritt E 170 series combines were all powered by a diesel engine, and some of them came with a chaff waggon rather than a straw waggon.
The Fortschritt E 512 is a self-propelled combine harvester that was made by the East-German manufacturer VEB Mähdrescherwerk Bischofswerda/Singwitz, and sold under the Fortschritt brand. It is the first Fortschritt combine harvester that has been solely developed in the GDR. The E 512 succeeded the Fortschritt E 170 series. At the time of its introduction in the late 1960s, the E 512 was a modern, sought-after combine harvester that could compete well with high-performance combines made in Western countries, such as the Clayson 140 and the Claas Senator. In total, 51,412 units were made from 1968 until 1988, which makes the E 512 the East German combine harvester with the highest production figure.
The Fortschritt E 514 is a self-propelled combine harvester, that was made by the East-German manufacturer VEB Mähdrescherwerk Bischofswerda/Singwitz in Singwitz, and sold under the Fortschritt brand. It is the successor to the Fortschritt E 512, which it did not manage to replace – the E 514 was produced alongside the E 512 from 1982 until 1988.
The Fortschritt E 162, also known as the LBH 52 Kombinus, is a tractor-drawn combine harvester, made by the East-German manufacturer VEB Mähdrescherwerk Boschofswerda/Singwitz in Singwitz, from 1952 until 1956. In total, 54 were built. The E 162 proved to be an unreliable combine, and it was soon replaced by the Fortschritt E 170 series.
