On 05/30/2017 8:41 AM, Scott Lurndal wrote:
writes:
On 05/26/2017 1:33 PM, Scott Lurndal wrote:
writes:

....

Were doing the row crop work with Farmall M's then--4 row lister, knife

We had a big Minneapolis Moline (unknown model, hand clutch) for most
row-crop work (and pulling the haybaler) with the Farmall B as a
utility tractor. The threshing rig was shared between my Grandfather
and one of the neighbors who had a Farmall M, H and super-C. We used
the "M" to run the threshing machine.

Other side of the family was all Massey Harris/Ferguson (modern AGco)
and a Ford 8N.

The equivalent for us would have been an old Twin City (iron converted
to rubber) precursor to M-M excepting it was the flat ground
beastie...the M's were the rowcrop versions.

From them the progress went thru the Farmall 400, then 560. That was
the last Farmall; it had terrible tranny issues and then was when Deere
introduced the 4000 series and Dad bought the first 4010 diesel and
never looked back.

Had a parallel line of Allis-Chalmers; grandfather had bought a little
WD-45 in mid 50s when he was getting where the M's were a little more
than he wanted to handle. Had a whole line of the "quick-tach"
proprietary 3-pt system implements with it. In '58 had first really
good wheat crop after the dry 50s and Dad updated it to a D-17 as well
as getting wheatland Case 930 and the aforementioned 4010. I put a
zillion hours on that D17 doing rowcrop with it...my brother hated the
row crop because had to pay so much attention to drive straight rows --
we were listing 4, knife-sledding/cultivating 6 and cutting 5 at the
time so a bad spacing meant a lot of lost crop. I, otoh, hated the
boredom of just going 'round 'n 'round in a square on the wheat ground!

....

Eventually, of course, everything got much bigger and the D-17 became
the utility tractor. It was pretty ideal for the time with low/wide
wheel base and a loader. It's the one besides the old Cat 22 I wish had
one of for collection/nostalgia.

The summer job in our area was mostly detassling corn(maize) in the 70's.

Never understood that one, really? Purpose? Need? Be awfully tough on
something like 60 circles on 20" rows with 25-30,000 plants/A.

Being all dryland, only corn we ever grew was a small sweet corn patch
that might (or might not) make any roasting ears depending on the year
and whether it rained at right time or not...