There were 16 different equipment manufacturers involved with POET’s Project LIBERTY Field Day. One of them was John Deere, represented by Dean Acheson, Manager, Solutions Development. Dean says that what they’re working on is completely customer based. He says they don’t want to be slowed down during harvest and they want to keep up a high level of productivity.
The prototype equipment they had on display was a one pass, two stream cob collection system. On the back of their combine they have a new prototype piece of equipment that allows the grain to follow a normal path and the cobs then flow out of an attachment on the back of the combine. He says the equipment allows you some flexibility in how you choose or handle what is being harvested. A wagon is pulled by a tractor alongside the combine to collect the cobs. They’re currently not endorsing the towing of equipment behind their combines but this is equipment that is in development for the future.
You can listen to my interview with Dean below and watch a video clip of their equipment in action.