Ben, Dale, and Chris test two John Deere combines, the S790 and X9 1100, head to head in tough harvest conditions. They measure real performance and reaction times as each machine tackles the same challenging work.
Getting to thousand tons is going to be a real challenge.
This is our third run.
I mean, to do challenge like this, there's a lot of planning.
Lots can go wrong, wait and see.
With wet conditions on day one, the window of opportunity was closing. A dry day two was a welcome sign with high winds and a temperature of 38 degrees, giving giving hope our attempt to harvest a thousand tonnes could happen the following day. In the afternoon, the crop was dry enough to harvest, so the team decided to put the X9 head to head with the S790 to test its performance in real world conditions.
In our head to head comparison, we are going to take Dale and Chris, we're going to put them in the S Series and the X Series for an hour each and really hold them accountable to pushing those machines. The X Series isn't about replacing S Series, so every farm is different, growing different crops, growing different yields in different parts of Australia. Having these two options now gives our customers the flexibility to be able to choose what's right on their farm. The S Series is the benchmark. Crazy that turns around that, but the X Series is exceptional.
I think we're right to go.
Yep.
Well, we'll go back when we get started.
Let's see what happens in the field. Going to lay down the rules of the challenge. Brother versus brother. One goes in the S series, one goes in. The X Series will give you an hour to harvest as much crop as you can. We want them to push the hardest they can on the capacity, so we're going to look at their tonnes per hour, but we're also going to check if you're cheating grain loss by checking your grain loss. And finally we'll look at the efficiency of both machines in terms of how many tonnes they're harvesting per litre. And then we're going to swap them over and see how they go. Going from an X Series back to S Series and also coming from an S up to an X and see how that feels.
Hey, who's the better driver out of your Dale? Oh, I'm the better driver, of course.
All right, gentlemen, this is it.
He probably can see you as many.
Tons as you can get.
What are you gonna say?
He's the better driver? On your marks.
I don't really care.
Get set. Quick update from the field ops center here. We've got Chris is in the X9, 1100. He's doing around about 53, 54 tonnes an hour in the X9. And we've got Dale in the 790 doing around 35, 36. So quick math on that is the X9 is around about 50, 50% greater capacity in the field, so that's really, really what we'd expect to see. They're probably down a little bit in terms of tonnes per hour that people want to see, but that's the conditions we're in. It's really tough, but we're still seeing that, you know, in the 50 to 60% range of capacity of the X9 over an S series combine.
So just dropped a lost pan just to check the X9's performing as it. As it should and the losses where we're at. So I put it into this fan to separate the chaff from the grain and then we can check the X9, like checking homework and make sure it's performing as it should. All the chaff and there's bits of straw and everything else. So we're left with just grain.
And.
That'S what we want, is just to see how much grain's in there. Check our losses here. Pour out behind the X9 at the 20 minute mark. That's 0.8 grams on the tray there. So 15 metre cut, 15.1 meter cut, 15.1 meter discharge width, it works out to 0.67% loss, which is the magic sub 1% loss, which is exactly what we want. And the X9 is performing as it gets a bit more tough here, a bit more humid. It's still low loss and high throughput, which is exactly what we want. So we. We're at halfway point here. Just doing a driver change, brother. Change. It's starting to get a little bit chewier now. The moisture is going to come up and this is when the X9 is really going to power ahead and. And probably differentiate itself from the S series.
Fastest machine I've ever driven. Anyway. That's a very impressive machine.
Yeah, it's unreal.
Love it. Community has gone up quite a lot since I hopped in the S Series and hopped out. I could really feel that moisture in the air, so it will be tougher condition for me. So Chris, I'd say, is probably going to beat me. White sails. Right.
This is the tip of the spear. There's five minutes to go. I repeat, five to go. Give it all you got. All right, Chris. Dale, how did you go? How was that?
So. Well, the X9 was just a totally different machine than I expected. Like, it just. It really sort of just plowed the crop into the front and just. Yeah, Hungry. Oh, just hungry. It's the most powerful machine I've ever driven.
All right, you want to know your numbers, you'll know the results. What do you think?
Point nine? Well, I'm making excuses now, but Chris has knocked me off. But he. He did cut the straw a lot higher.
Yeah, he did. What do you think? Yeah. X9 over the S7 was, I reckon about 20.
Yeah, I think 18.
20%.
Yeah.
Okay. On that first run, 69% was X series capacity over the. Over the S. So that's as advertised. We advertise that the. The S, the X will do about 70% over the S. And it's. Is it surprising?
Oh, I wasn't expecting that done.
But. But we wanted to show, you know, the reality of what happens at harvest and I think you guys did a great job at doing that for us all night.
Ben, thank you very much.
D thanks, Chris.
Thank you very much.
Thanks. Thanks, Chris. You hear a lot of people talk about it and it is a game changer. So, guys, got some bad news tomorrow. Tato Fireband tomorrow. So there's not going to be much harvesting going on, so they brought out a weather warning and high winds and yeah, they reckon they're going to cease harvesting it Thursday. Look. Okay, Thursday looks better than tomorrow. That's good. Might have to do it. We'll have to do it Thursday then. The weather's just playing its part and we can't do anything about it.
So we pretty much gone from flood on the first day, extreme heat on the second day. Fire band today. But tomorrow is really the only shot we've got to get it right.
