Farm Show Pictures Including JCB Military

[joedirt]

Here are some pics of the farm show we just went to in California. The first is a pic of a Gannon box that opens. I have never seen this before. The second is one of many grape harvesters. The others are of some tricked out hay squeezes. The last is of the JCB military backhoe. They say they have a government contract to build 750 of these in the next 9 years or so. Top speed of this machine is 62 MPH.

[joedirt]

Olive harvester, an off road dump I've never seen, couple of shots of some pruning tractors.

[joedirt]

Heres a few more. Tomato harvester, JCB again, Almond sweeper, another shot of the pruner, and an old old cat.

[joedirt]

Long front excavator,almond shaker, and a fancy spray rig. This show has everything. I would say it is a mini con-expo. It covers about 50 plus square acres. I took some shots of Cat and Deere but I must of fouled up the shots.:Banghead Thanks Joe

[bobcat ron]

Some wild looking machines there.............

[BIGBEN2004]

I bet some very expensive machines too.

[Steve Frazier]

What exactly is a hay squeeze?

[bobcat ron]

What exactly is a hay squeeze?

It's like a fork lift for hay bales, it drives up to the bales, squeezes them together in pairs(if they are the big ones) and stacks them on top of the others.

[Colin Doy]

Thanks for posting those Joe I really wanted to go but have been laid up with a ruptured disc (surgery this Monday).:(

[Steve Frazier]

Been there done that Colin. If it helps put your mind at ease, I'd opt for the surgery again, it brought a lot of relief.

Thanks for posting joedirt! I grew up here in dairy and apple farm country, not too many farms left any more. I've never seen much of the equipment you posted. The pruners have me curious too. I'm just wondering, the hay squeezers seem like a pretty elaborate machine to fulfill a single function. I would think you'd have to move an awful lot of hay to justify a machine like that.

[joedirt]

Sure happy to hear you guys like the pics. You're right on those hay squeezes Steve. I can tell you that out in that California valley, alfalfa is big business. To explain a little more about the squeezes, they are basically a truck tractor disguised as a fork lift. Most of them are running 3406 Cats or Series 60 Detroits. I grew up in that valley for a couple of years and you would see those things everywhere. They will definitely run 75 plus miles an hour. There were probably 10 or so at the show with different builders among them.

On a side note, I spoke to a fella who works for Boswell farms a couple of years ago in the valley. He told me how much acreage they are farming but its already slipped through my mind. I do remember he said they would hire some 8000 plus employees in the picking season. I also remember they currently run some 200 plus D7g Ag machines. I remember driving through some of their farms and seeing rows and rows of them lined up in the winter. Its certainly big business and the small farmer is going by the way side. :usa

[joedirt]

Here is the inside of the Hay Squeeze. Those pruner tractors are crazy Steve. If you look at the one picture I posted you can see a billboard of one working in the orchard. In the pics I put up the blades are probably 30 inch in diameter.

I'm so mad I took a bunch more pics with my new digital camera but they didn't come out (operator error). I can tell you that both Deere and Cat had a bunch of iron there. Deer's big show case was a huge cotton picker. I was talking to the factory rep and he was telling me it will sell for around 500 thousand. Jokingly he said, that sure is a lot of money to spend for a piece of equipment you can only use 3 weeks out of the year. :Pointhead

[dirt digger]

its cool to see the difference in equipment across the nation...here in PA the only things you find at farm shows are tractors, corn, soybean, and hay equipment...none of that fancy stuff you have over there

[pushkid84]

man those machines acool looking nothing like that around here. but then again i dont think you need anythng to fancy to harvestsand.:usa

[BIGBEN2004]

I like how the weird looking stuff like the cutters and sprayers always have bright and cool looking paint jobs on them.

[thejdman04]

great pics thanks

[Bellboy]

I heard that the JCB military has two seats in the cab. Do you think you can find some pics please?

Other than that, cool show. Got a show coming up soon, hope to post some pics. Its an agricultural show, but its like one of your shows.

[Taylortractornu]

Great pics of the farm show. Onething I found last week was troubling about the JCB machine for the military. I was looking at Polytrac.de manufacturers link page and saw an exact copy exactly identical to the JCB machine then found out that JCB teamed up to build them with Jong Yang excavator for miltaryservice.

[surfer-joe]

Were these at the farm show in Visalia, Joe? I've been to that a couple of times, hoped to make it this year, but didn't get a RV to haul that way at the time. It would take the better part of a week to fully appreciate and examine everything at the Visalia show. It is supposed to be the largest farm show in the world. They have a nice collection of antique equipment there.

It's hard to believe how big some of the farm operations are these days. That one you mention is now part of Grimway I believe, or is it the other way around I forget. Anyway, Bosworth had operations in six states the last I knew including California, Michigan, Arizona and Nevada.

The big cotton harvestors rotate between California, Arizona and Texas. Still a mighty large investment that does in fact, sit parked for much of the year.