John Deere Combine Factory, East Moline, IL - Thursday, May 15th, 2014

S690 combine with 18-row corn head; cost = $700,000

Shortly after our stops in Ohio, we traveled to Illinois to the John Deere Harvester Works factory to watch combines being created. The tour we took was an hour and a half truck ride through the 4-mile covered factory. I never could have dreamed of all the work and thought that goes into a piece of machinery like that! We saw everything from how they cut the steel pieces to how they paint the final product. The most advanced version of the combine can harvest about 30 acres an hour… yep, you got it! 30 acres an hour. Amazing technology, but also extremely expensive – the top-of-the-line combine (S690) with 18-row corn header costs $700,000. We sat in an S690 in the lobby of the factory; it was a long climb to the cab. The main takeaway from this stop was putting into perspective how capital intensive farming is today, and the vast scale of American agriculture.

But… Nothin’ Runs Like a Deere! Yee-Haw! 

- Molly