Any innovation with a half-century worth of staying power deserves some recognition.
That includes New Holland’s transformative Twin Rotor combine technology (pictured below), which was invented by a team of engineers in Belgium and patented by the manufacturer in 1975 and has left an indelible mark on the harvesting equipment sector: Over 70,000 combines with the once “game changing” innovation have been built and shipped to farms around the world since its debut 50 years ago.
The story of the twin rotor starts, according to New Holland’s Ryan Schaffer, vice president for North America, just over a decade prior when New Holland acquired Belgian combine manufacturer Leon Clay Co. in 1964.
Clay’s engineers had already started on a twin rotor prototype before the acquisition went through, and New Holland’s engineering team jumped in and finished the job.
The rest, as they say, is history.
“This was at a time when grain quality was becoming more important to farmers, because farming had shifted from producing for local markets to producing grain more as a globally marketed commodity,” Schaefer explains. “The twin rotor design works because it utilizes physics to thresh the grain faster and more gently than other combines of its time.”
Schaefer likens the twin rotor separation process to something most kids from the ’90s will surely remember: the barf-inducing, head spinning Gravitron fair ride.
For those that don’t know, the Gravitron was a UFO-shaped, LED-bedazzled amusement ride that fairgoers pile inside of, where they would position themselves against a vertically moving, slanted wall. The ride would then start to spin in a circle at a very high speed until it generated enough inertia and centrifugal force to push the interior walls against the riders with enough force (along with static electricity) to basically plaster them against the wall like a bug smashed against a window with a fly swatter. Then, the floor would drop and riders would be treated to a several stomach-turning seconds of feeling like they are floating in air and defying gravity
And that’s exactly how the twin rotor works: The two hollowed out rotors spin at high speeds, creating enough inertia and force to toss the heavier material, in this case the harvested grain, into the grain tank and lighter material like chaff and pieces of stalk is blasted out the back of the combine.
While that twin rotor setup was initially used in New Holland’s flagship combine of the time, the TR 70, it has lasted throughout the years and today is at the very heart of New Holland’s mammoth, sensor-and-automation-tech-packed CR 11 combine. Case IH also offers a twin-rotor setup in its AF-11 machine.
“When we built the CR 11, we clearly set out to produce a larger machine with a higher (grain tank) capacity, but it also had to help improve the operator’s bottom line,” Schaefer says. “A focus on lowering the total cost of harvesting — which calculates everything from maintenance costs to harvest losses — for our farmers powers every design update we make to our combines.”
Combine History on Display
As part of New Holland’s yearlong celebration of the 50th anniversary, it connected a group of ag media and social media influencers with southern Indiana farmers Jacob and Brittany Loftus.
The Loftuses are the proud owners of a 1975 New Holland TR 70 combine with the original four row corn head. They use the now rust-pocked, unassuming yellow and red classic every year to harvest 10 acres of organic corn. The couple mostly grows a diverse selection of specialty crops, and some corn and soybeans, across 200 acres in the fertile Ohio River Valley just northwest of Louisville, Ky.
“We acquired this in early 2000 when my Dad decided to upgrade combines, and then we ran it for about 15 years as our main combine. Back then we probably did about 400 acres of beans every year, so it’s done a lot of beans in its lifetime,” says Jacob Loftus.
The couple also keep a backup “parts combine” on hand to pull original parts from when something breaks.
“It’s kind of semi-retired these days, and we actually had two of them at one time before we lost one. It burnt up,” Loftus says.
Loftus likens the old harvester to a 1970s muscle car: It just works, and there’s really not much that can break on it, he says. Think the old hand-crank car windows of yesteryear versus today’s automatic power windows.
“You can just set it and forget it, basically. I rarely have to do any adjustments on this machine year to year; it just picks good, clean corn,” he says. “Luckily the main components have never failed, just have to get some bearings, pulleys, chains and belts from the dealer here and there.”
Brittany Loftus gets a kick out of seeing the locals reactions when the unique relic of the past is out kicking up dust and chopping corn. It has to be quite the contrast to today’s modern, shiny steel and tempered glass ensconced futuristic harvesters.
“A lot of the little kids in the neighborhood, he’s like their idol because they’ll stop and watch and go, ‘oh, Jacob’s out in the field, Mom,’ and they are just like mesmerized by big equipment, so that’s really cool,” she says.
Check out this video from YouTube content creators and Wisconsin custom farmers, New Age Custom Harvesting, who were on hand to help celebrate the anniversary and check out the Loftuses’ classic combine:
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