New Holland's Answer to the John Deere 336

This is not a bash one color vs another thread, more of a historical/experience thread.

Was out and about today and drove buy a farm field I'm familiar with and the baler used there and on a few nearby partials is an old John Deere 336. The hay was third cutting mixed grass and plenty of weeds. They milk these fields for all the grass they can get with few inputs each year.

Bottom line - the bales spit out by old 336, from a close highway view, looked to be solid bricks. They were baled out on the ground. Not a lot of bales given how dry it is here and a surely thin windrows, but the field was littered with really nice looking bales of hay. Impressive.

I gather in the early 70's, square bales were still king as round balers hadn't made inroads on the farms so much???

I'm thinking the New Holland 268 and 273 balers were the 336's competitor. However, the 336 brought with it 80 strokes per minute, I'm thinking the 268/273 were 65? Would the 336 have been priced out of range of a small acreage farmer with a MF 135 or Ford 3000 tractor and they turned to the 268/273 balers (assuming they were lower priced). There are certainly a ton of 273 balers out there.

What did New Holland counter with on square balers to compete with the JD 336? Was there ever a time JD out sold New Holland square balers? I'm guessing if they did, it was with the 336.

What do you remember from those days when new New Holland and new John Deere 336 balers dominated the hayfields?

Just curious.

Thanks,
Bill

New Holland's match to the JD 336 certainly wasn't the 273. Maybe the 276.. I think JD had a 326, maybe it was a price and capacity match to a 273. A 336 will eat hay, capable of 8 bales a minute like the old New Holland 271. The 273 is a smaller baler.

i just checked my 273 op. manual and they were 66 strokes per minute. dad had a 275 and that was in the mid 70s spm the 275 was replaced by the 276 . i believe the 278 was 108 spm . i know my dads 311 is 79 spm the 311 was the small baler in the line. i think he bought it in 1984

The NH baler that would be a match to the JD 336 is the NH 276. I currently own TWO of them. There one of the best small square balers ever made period. The NH 276 has just a little more capacity. The JD 336 has 80 strokes per minute where the NH 276 has 93 stokes per minute. These numbers are from memory so they maybe off just a little but the NH 276 does have more strokes per minute.

The knotters are just about the same. Both brands will bale all day long making good knots if they are in good repair and adjusted correctly.

mOst any brand of baler will put out really nice tight bales when maintained and ajusted correctly, and when hay conditions are right, ie uniform windrows. I like larger windrows as my baler, NH282 bales better when I keep the feeder full of hay. I have used and worked on both JD and NH balers, proper adjustment is the key.

Apparently you never used a Ford 530 baler.

We had a Ford 530 baler, it was a good machine, but got too expensive to fix. With hay on the ground we bought a brand new NH315, the MF150 diesel may brother has had no problems running the 315. We almost got the new NH320 sitting next to the 315, but it was a bit more than we had to spend. The 315 made lots of nice bales, we used it a lot less when people started to want round bales.

I recall quite a few small farms back in the day that did not cater to any one brand and a lot of them had a 336 baler and a 7000 planter.

Funny you should mention the 336 and 273. Buddy and I help each other out when we bale. He has the 336 and I have a 273. He has always complained that his baler didnt put out bales like my 273. His bales always look furry compared to the "brick" look of mine. UNTIL I took my baler over to his place as his 336 was broke down and baled his hay to find out that my bales looked furry. We figured that I use mo/co and he uses sickle mower. Made a difference on how the bale looked out the back. I couldnt believe it but the crimping must make a difference when the bale gets processed in baler.

336 has the cork screw feeder to chamber as my 273 has the 6 fingers. I think my 273 cleans a field better than his BUT again that can be the way its raked, mowed baler setting to ground. etc..

From what I can tell first hand working with both balers.. both are good running balers with minimal problems..

We had case and oliver balers when I was a kid but in the 70's a man in the neighborhood bought a new 336, he ran it with a AC 190 XT, wide open. Most everybody worked together back then and we baled a lot of sudex and Johnson grass in the summer and rice straw in the fall, that 336 would make a young man sleep good at night.

We owned a 273 and I worked for a man with the 336 both seemed to bale just fine. We ran that 273 all over the country baled around 50,000 bales a season with it and it almost never missed a bale.

(quoted from post at 11:59:40 09/12/16) We owned a 273 and I worked for a man with the 336 both seemed to bale just fine. We ran that 273 all over the country baled around 50,000 bales a season with it and it almost never missed a bale.

Click to expand...

we also had a 273 and aside from normal maintenance and wear parts replacement it was still going strong after 40+ years. But not the highest capacity baler though.

From what I can determine, the 336 was built from '71 to'80.
The early NH comparatives would have been one of the 2xx balers, then the NH 315 would have been the comparative to the last 336 balers. the 315 was built from '75 to '82, and replaced by the 316, 570 and eventually the BC5070. The 336 was replaced with the 337, and the 338.
I started with a McCormick 45T, then to a JD 24T, followed by a NH 315, and now a NH 570. Each one has been a step up!
Dave

I would agree - the 276 is what would have been matched against the early 336 balers. Both will eat a lot of hay and put out some decent bales.

A 276 in action. They really move through the field:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5DHzB5XniM


Puts my old IH 47 to shame creeping through the fields at 2 MPH (or slower) with the same sized windrows.