How is your JD x9 combine performing?

Pilatus

Member
Location
cotswolds
The ‘100 tons per hour’ figure being proclaimed is likely spot rate and not average so you can knock 10% off at least for headlands and turning etc. Also this year there is a large amount of straw of which I’m finding is still not 100 ripe and really the limiting factor on output, struggling to get spot rates over 65tph with our 770.
On a bright sunny day, which we have not had many this harvest, in the right sized field with a 4t + short strawed crop then I’d say these figures are easily achievable and i bet the claas and nh wouldn’t be far behind
Unless a large difference in output, service backup,and the amount of the monthly payments may make a farmers mind up , as to which combine he would purchase ;)
 

Pilatus

Member
Location
cotswolds
Hi @Shutesy , any update on how the JD x9 performed last harvest.
On another angle , I wonder if any Estates/large farms/ contract farmers have ordered an X9 rather than Claas 8900 or any other combine maker’s equivalent.
With agriculture in transition machinery replacement will still go on, but how one pays the leasing/ finance payments I do not know???? 🙀
I ask as a machinery geek not as one that has to make the payments :unsure: ;)
 

Shutesy

Moderator
Arable Farmer
Completely forgot about this thread until tagged again today so apologies for the late reply.

To sum the combine up in one word, it's phenomenal. When we bought it to replace two fairly worn S680s on 30ft heads we hoped for a nice easy harvest to get used to it, good yields and dry crops. However we got pretty much the opposite, damp dull days, crops not ripening, huge amounts of straw, some flat crops and disappointing amounts of grain that took some threshing in certain varieties.

Reliability wise, if it wasn't for picking up a few large stones/rocks/lumps of concrete while cutting flat crops the combine itself would have had no downtime due to unreliability, it performed faultlessly. Daily maintenance is pretty simple, the lowest frequency grease nipples are at 50 hours with about 10 on the header and 4 on the combine, another 6 at 100 hours and another 4 at 200 hours. (Remembering off the top of my head). Engine air filter only needed cleaning twice all harvest. Otherwise check belt and chain tensions as well as the standard oil and coolant levels and blow it down and shes ready to go each day. The automatically reversing radiator fan (every 15 mins while working) is incredible how it kicks out all the dust in the rad, loads of people who saw it work from the outside said about the plume of dust that blow out each time it kicked in, I tried blowing the radiators out with a leaf blower and an airline and barely anything bar a bit of surface dust came out, the reversing fan had already got it all out! The airflow round the engine is also impressive, it never built up with any chaff reducing fire hazards and took very little time to clean what light dust did build up. Its been very well thought out.

The HDX40 header again pretty faultless, the main problems being damage from stones causing replacement knife sections, fingers and retractable fingers in the centre auger, the biggest non-rock realted issue was the rhs top auger slipping when under pressure to pull crop into the centre of the header, however most of the time the top auger was off so not a big issue and its due to be modified this winter which should fix that, other minor issues such as a oil leak from a pipe and a broken split pin so nothing to much to worry about given it too was also a newly designed piece of kit for 2020.
The performance of the header in all crops but certainly flat crops was very impressive, the belts drawing in the cut crop into the header was quite an unbelieveable sight at times that the machine could handle so much biomass at the speeds we were traveling, the crop always being presented headfirst and evenly into the feederhouse makes a noticeable difference to a non belt style header that I had been used to before.

We didn't directly have it in the same field at the same time as any other machine to compare but we did have the chance to compare its performance after talking to a neighbour running a Claas Lexion 8900 with a 45ft header and running a JD S790i with a 30ft header ourselves whilst the X9 was out of action due to rock damage.

The 8900 was in a similar 8t/ha crop of wheat at 17-18% moisture, straw like a 10t/ha crop but just not the grain there, both chopping the straw leaving a similar stubble height, the Lexion was using its extra 150hp to run a 5ft bigger header at the same speed as we were going of 5.5-6kph so not much in it at the point of comparison. (Didn't ask fuel usage figures at the time).

The S790i obviously isn't supposed to be a comparable machine to the X9 and that showed when we ran one for an afternoon. With a 10ft smaller header (30ft) during the day in similar wheat to that mentioned above it would be doing circa 4-4.5kph and once it got dark and the damp came down the rotor losses shot up causing an enforced slow down to nearer 3kph, in the same field 2 days later at the same time of day with the X9 back up and running we were still doing a minimum of 5kph late into the night, engine power being the limiting factor not rotor losses. The huge threshing and cleaning areas of the X9 really showing there advantages.

Losses never became an issue due to the reduced forward speed from damp crops with large straw volumes meaning we couldn't push the machine to its max until near the end of harvest. But a loss test we did with our dealer in Winter barley early on in harvest, running around 6kph in a 9t/ha part of the field came out as a 0.2% loss which we did twice as we couldn't believe it first time round.

Overall everybody was very pleased with the machine, it did all we asked of it, completed a difficult harvest in a similar time to the 2 previous machines would, using less fuel, only one driver and the logisitics were so much simpler, plus 40k on the road makes a big difference on long road moves. The cab is a superb place to spend the day, JD have gone all out to think about the operator in there and I loved driving it! The backup from our local dealer and John Deere has been excellent, they are continually looking to improve the machine and have taken ideas and thoughts from owners and operators across the country back to the USA to keep refining the machines.
 

Pilatus

Member
Location
cotswolds
Completely forgot about this thread until tagged again today so apologies for the late reply.

To sum the combine up in one word, it's phenomenal. When we bought it to replace two fairly worn S680s on 30ft heads we hoped for a nice easy harvest to get used to it, good yields and dry crops. However we got pretty much the opposite, damp dull days, crops not ripening, huge amounts of straw, some flat crops and disappointing amounts of grain that took some threshing in certain varieties.

Reliability wise, if it wasn't for picking up a few large stones/rocks/lumps of concrete while cutting flat crops the combine itself would have had no downtime due to unreliability, it performed faultlessly. Daily maintenance is pretty simple, the lowest frequency grease nipples are at 50 hours with about 10 on the header and 4 on the combine, another 6 at 100 hours and another 4 at 200 hours. (Remembering off the top of my head). Engine air filter only needed cleaning twice all harvest. Otherwise check belt and chain tensions as well as the standard oil and coolant levels and blow it down and shes ready to go each day. The automatically reversing radiator fan (every 15 mins while working) is incredible how it kicks out all the dust in the rad, loads of people who saw it work from the outside said about the plume of dust that blow out each time it kicked in, I tried blowing the radiators out with a leaf blower and an airline and barely anything bar a bit of surface dust came out, the reversing fan had already got it all out! The airflow round the engine is also impressive, it never built up with any chaff reducing fire hazards and took very little time to clean what light dust did build up. Its been very well thought out.

The HDX40 header again pretty faultless, the main problems being damage from stones causing replacement knife sections, fingers and retractable fingers in the centre auger, the biggest non-rock realted issue was the rhs top auger slipping when under pressure to pull crop into the centre of the header, however most of the time the top auger was off so not a big issue and its due to be modified this winter which should fix that, other minor issues such as a oil leak from a pipe and a broken split pin so nothing to much to worry about given it too was also a newly designed piece of kit for 2020.
The performance of the header in all crops but certainly flat crops was very impressive, the belts drawing in the cut crop into the header was quite an unbelieveable site at times that the machine could handle so much biomass at the speeds we were traveling.

We didn't directly have it in the same field at the same time as any other machine to compare but we did have the chance to compare its performance after talking to a neighbour running a Claas Lexion 8900 with a 45ft header and running a JD S790i with a 30ft header ourselves whilst the X9 was out of action due to rock damage.

The 8900 was in a similar 8t/ha crop of wheat at 17-18% moisture, straw like a 10t/ha crop but just not the grain there, both chopping the straw leaving a similar stubble height, the Lexion was using its extra 150hp to run a 5ft bigger header at the same speed as we were going of 5.5-6kph so not much in it at the point of comparison. (Didn't ask fuel usage figures at the time).

The S790i obviously isn't supposed to be a comparable machine to the X9 and that showed when we ran one for an afternoon. With a 10ft smaller header (30ft) during the day in similar wheat to that mentioned above it would be doing circa 4-4.5kph and once it got dark and the damp came down the rotor losses shot up causing an enforced slow down to nearer 3kph, in the same field 2 days later at the same time of day with the X9 back up and running we were still doing a minimum of 5kph late into the night, engine power being the limiting factor not rotor losses. The huge threshing and cleaning areas of the X9 really showing there advantages.

Losses never became an issue due to the reduced forward speed from damp crops with large straw volumes meaning we couldn't push the machine to its max until near the end of harvest. But a loss test we did with our dealer in Winter barley early on in harvest, running around 6kph in a 9t/ha part of the field came out as a 0.2% loss which we did twice as we couldn't believe it first time round.

Overall everybody was very pleased with the machine, it did all we asked of it, completed a difficult harvest in a similar time to the 2 previous machines would, using less fuel, only one driver and the logisitics were so much simpler, plus 40k on the road makes a big difference on long road moves. The cab is a superb place to spend the day, JD have gone all out to think about the operator in there and I loved driving it! The backup from our local dealer and John Deere has been excellent, they are continually looking to improve the machine and have taken ideas and thoughts from owners and operators across the country back to the USA to keep refining the machines.
Many thanks for taking the time to write such an informative post . (y) (y)
 

benny6910

Member
Arable Farmer
Completely forgot about this thread until tagged again today so apologies for the late reply.

To sum the combine up in one word, it's phenomenal. When we bought it to replace two fairly worn S680s on 30ft heads we hoped for a nice easy harvest to get used to it, good yields and dry crops. However we got pretty much the opposite, damp dull days, crops not ripening, huge amounts of straw, some flat crops and disappointing amounts of grain that took some threshing in certain varieties.

Reliability wise, if it wasn't for picking up a few large stones/rocks/lumps of concrete while cutting flat crops the combine itself would have had no downtime due to unreliability, it performed faultlessly. Daily maintenance is pretty simple, the lowest frequency grease nipples are at 50 hours with about 10 on the header and 4 on the combine, another 6 at 100 hours and another 4 at 200 hours. (Remembering off the top of my head). Engine air filter only needed cleaning twice all harvest. Otherwise check belt and chain tensions as well as the standard oil and coolant levels and blow it down and shes ready to go each day. The automatically reversing radiator fan (every 15 mins while working) is incredible how it kicks out all the dust in the rad, loads of people who saw it work from the outside said about the plume of dust that blow out each time it kicked in, I tried blowing the radiators out with a leaf blower and an airline and barely anything bar a bit of surface dust came out, the reversing fan had already got it all out! The airflow round the engine is also impressive, it never built up with any chaff reducing fire hazards and took very little time to clean what light dust did build up. Its been very well thought out.

The HDX40 header again pretty faultless, the main problems being damage from stones causing replacement knife sections, fingers and retractable fingers in the centre auger, the biggest non-rock realted issue was the rhs top auger slipping when under pressure to pull crop into the centre of the header, however most of the time the top auger was off so not a big issue and its due to be modified this winter which should fix that, other minor issues such as a oil leak from a pipe and a broken split pin so nothing to much to worry about given it too was also a newly designed piece of kit for 2020.
The performance of the header in all crops but certainly flat crops was very impressive, the belts drawing in the cut crop into the header was quite an unbelieveable sight at times that the machine could handle so much biomass at the speeds we were traveling, the crop always being presented headfirst and evenly into the feederhouse makes a noticeable difference to a non belt style header that I had been used to before.

We didn't directly have it in the same field at the same time as any other machine to compare but we did have the chance to compare its performance after talking to a neighbour running a Claas Lexion 8900 with a 45ft header and running a JD S790i with a 30ft header ourselves whilst the X9 was out of action due to rock damage.

The 8900 was in a similar 8t/ha crop of wheat at 17-18% moisture, straw like a 10t/ha crop but just not the grain there, both chopping the straw leaving a similar stubble height, the Lexion was using its extra 150hp to run a 5ft bigger header at the same speed as we were going of 5.5-6kph so not much in it at the point of comparison. (Didn't ask fuel usage figures at the time).

The S790i obviously isn't supposed to be a comparable machine to the X9 and that showed when we ran one for an afternoon. With a 10ft smaller header (30ft) during the day in similar wheat to that mentioned above it would be doing circa 4-4.5kph and once it got dark and the damp came down the rotor losses shot up causing an enforced slow down to nearer 3kph, in the same field 2 days later at the same time of day with the X9 back up and running we were still doing a minimum of 5kph late into the night, engine power being the limiting factor not rotor losses. The huge threshing and cleaning areas of the X9 really showing there advantages.

Losses never became an issue due to the reduced forward speed from damp crops with large straw volumes meaning we couldn't push the machine to its max until near the end of harvest. But a loss test we did with our dealer in Winter barley early on in harvest, running around 6kph in a 9t/ha part of the field came out as a 0.2% loss which we did twice as we couldn't believe it first time round.

Overall everybody was very pleased with the machine, it did all we asked of it, completed a difficult harvest in a similar time to the 2 previous machines would, using less fuel, only one driver and the logisitics were so much simpler, plus 40k on the road makes a big difference on long road moves. The cab is a superb place to spend the day, JD have gone all out to think about the operator in there and I loved driving it! The backup from our local dealer and John Deere has been excellent, they are continually looking to improve the machine and have taken ideas and thoughts from owners and operators across the country back to the USA to keep refining the machines.
Sounds like a impressive machine. Are you predominantly on flat ground or have you many hills? The reason I ask is the feedback that I heard from around here is that the demo machine wasn’t a hill side model so it was missing something inside it? So this didn’t help it get a very good reputation around us last harvest.
 

Pilatus

Member
Location
cotswolds
Sounds like a impressive machine. Are you predominantly on flat ground or have you many hills? The reason I ask is the feedback that I heard from around here is that the demo machine wasn’t a hill side model so it was missing something inside it? So this didn’t help it get a very good reputation around us last harvest.
Interesting Question, but what do you mean by Hillside Model?
I ask ,as unless I am mistaken there are no Hillside versions on any makes of what I term “jumbo”size combines .
 
Last edited:

benny6910

Member
Arable Farmer
Interesting Question, but what do you mean by Hillside Model?
I ask ,as unless I am mistaken there are no Hillside versions on any makes of what I term “jumbo”size combines .
I’m not sure to be honest, jd rep told me it was missing something inside as it was not a “hillside” machine? I have no idea what he was meaning was missing.
 

Shutesy

Moderator
Arable Farmer
Sounds like a impressive machine. Are you predominantly on flat ground or have you many hills? The reason I ask is the feedback that I heard from around here is that the demo machine wasn’t a hill side model so it was missing something inside it? So this didn’t help it get a very good reputation around us last harvest.
Where we are is pretty flat but there is the odd hill here and there. Ours has the automated system on it for adjusting the sieves and fan speed to maintain the sample quality and loss level depending on whether your going up, down or across a hill. Whether they all have that as standard I wouldn't know.
 

solo

Member
Location
worcestershire
The demo x9 2021 harvest combine was the one on the Ripon stand at the midland machinery show. I don’t think you can use the jd hillmaster system with tracks.
 

Al R

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Wales
See Mike Mitchell has a couple of these now not overly impressive
Many people arn’t overly impressed with Mike to be honest, gets machines in then slanders the hell out of them. Didn’t he buy a machine once based on the cup holders 🤦🏻‍♂️
He’s got poor - average crops hasn’t he where a old STS 9880 would do fine and not the thick dense crops like we have here where the extra power is needed all the time..
 
Many people arn’t overly impressed with Mike to be honest, gets machines in then slanders the hell out of them. Didn’t he buy a machine once based on the cup holders 🤦🏻‍♂️
He’s got poor - average crops hasn’t he where a old STS 9880 would do fine and not the thick dense crops like we have here where the extra power is needed all the time..

Agreed, Mike does to be harsh in deed and word on virtually all kit and his conditions are pretty extreme. I mean harvesting a 40 bushel crop is totally different to harvesting a 250 bushel crop in Europe with a mountain of straw to contend with.

Mike would simply appear to need as many physical feet of header width on the place as possible. A fleet of CR New holland or even axial flows, cheap and quite simple to run and what else do you really want? Fit them with stripper headers and just till the straw in behind, would save a great deal of diggering around but I guess that is what youtube channels are made of.
 

Richard Smyth

Member
Arable Farmer
Agreed, Mike does to be harsh in deed and word on virtually all kit and his conditions are pretty extreme. I mean harvesting a 40 bushel crop is totally different to harvesting a 250 bushel crop in Europe with a mountain of straw to contend with.

Mike would simply appear to need as many physical feet of header width on the place as possible. A fleet of CR New holland or even axial flows, cheap and quite simple to run and what else do you really want? Fit them with stripper headers and just till the straw in behind, would save a great deal of diggering around but I guess that is what youtube channels are made of.

If he tilled all his land in his area he wouldn’t grow any crop. It would all blow away. I’m no fan of mike but tillage is a no no just like here.
 

Al R

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Wales
Makes me wonder how they can spend any money on new kit,having had a poor harvest last year as well.
Minimum yield Crop insurance out in some parts isn’t there? Basically get paid for 500kg/acre of OSR just for planting it and then whatever you harvest is a bonus? That’s what a combine driver who goes out there every year was telling me his understanding was when I asked about very poor yields
 

quattro

Member
Location
scotland
Makes me wonder how they can spend any money on new kit,having had a poor harvest last year as well.
It’s abit like the new bins they put up they have to be prepared for a normal harvest
it wouldn’t be easy having older combines for a poor harvest and then turning out to be a good one and then can’t cope
their money their choice, it would be a daunting task drilling and cutting their acreage
 

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