The future of farm tractors

What do you think new tractors and combines will be like and look 50 years from now? (I ain't going to start on the Chip Foose 4020 thing, either) Will the children born in 2014 appreciate tractors made in our generation as we do of those made in our parents and grandparents' generations? Will a 2014 tractor be collectible and will Yesterday's Tractors carry parts for them?
 
Since we will be out of food long before then, from overpopulation, and everyone will be at war with everyone else over food, I'm betting that farm tractors will be well armored to resist attack.
 
Most likely the big change in farm tractors will be the fuel they use. The word tractor comes from traction and that means pulling . There is little that can be done to increase traction other than build larger tractors which reduces their utility.
I would not be surprised if we see a return to gas fueled engines given the reduction in pollution and the abundance of natural gas. By gas I mean natural or lpg not gasoline. And, yes, electronics will be big and there will be a lot of computers onboard.

Collectors will still want the older tractors because of the fact that original designers had little to direct them and yet they made tractors that have served the farmers for many years with great reliability and may still be used way into the future.

The 2014 tractors will be junk long before they become collectable.
 
Tractors in the future will be much more computerized than they are now. I can also see them being remote controlled. You can sit in your living room at your computer "driving" your tractor while it plants or plows, and all operational functions that need to be monitored will be monitored electronically by sensors cameras with data sent to the home computer, which will be much more advanced than ours today. Drone tractors. Same thing with combines.

Or else the world will be in a state of anarchy with the survivors reduced to hunting and gathering, and no planned agriculture.
 
I wish I had that article and the artist drawings from it,that appeared in Michigan Farmer Magazine in the 60's. It was predictions about farming in the 80s. The tractors were low slung 4 wheel drive,had bubble type dome cabs,front and rear 3 point,4 PTOs,front,rear and both sides. Tillage equipment used sonic waves to break up the ground.
Some of the things came to be,but the artist renditions were way off.
 
I don't know exact numbers but think about this if you think we will run out of food in 50 years.

50 years ago we had x number of people and corn yields were less than 100 bushels per acre. Population numbers have maybe doubled in the last 50 years. Corn and wheat production has doubled or more in the last 50 years with more acres and 170 bushel yields.

The National Champion corn yield hit 500 bushels per acre this year. It was 200 back 50 years ago.

They are growing crops in South America where crops have never been growen before.

With all the feed available more livestock is raised as well. Probably doubled in numbers from 50 years ago.

I don't think food will be a problem for 100's of years.

Gary
 
I also wonder about today's cars and trucks, you think anyone will collect them down the road???
 
Agree. We have unmanned aerial drones flown from a remote computer now. We could have tractor drones piloted remotely from a computer located in your house. Program the computer with variable rate technology for each field for seed population, fertilize, insecticide applied for each grid sample in the field. Then hit the "go" button on computer. Some of this VRT technology exists now except not figured out how to turn tractor around at end of field. Will be in less than 50 yrs, when we do.Farmers have always overproduced when given an opportunity for making profit. Do not see this changing in the future nor do I see future "wars" in this country over food.
 
I doubt that any of today's cars and trucks will be collectable.
The reason: too many parts that will NOT stand up to the test of time, and will not be replaceable or even reproducible. Computer modules that are getting too specific to function will be near to impossible to replicate, and the supply of replacements will be non-existent. Many of the moldings and trim parts will not be repairable or replaceable. Items like chrome flashed grilles and side trim if available will likely be in the same condition as the ones needing replacement -if for no other reason, time will take its toll. Take a look at some of the modern schematics. They point out GEM modules in many places. Those are proprietary electronic modules that will cease to exist in the aftermarket.

Overall, I would say that the survival rate for today's vehicles will be way less than for older vehicles. On the older ones, rust was the main enemy followed by simple wear and tear. Today, the REAL enemy is ELECTRONICS followed by plastics.
 
I was looking at a new 8370RT Deere at the local dealer and was looking at the Teir 4 exhaust system,,Wow, a "Huge" muffler on the corner of the cab to deal with it,,so I was wondering what the muffler and pipe would cost..#10 cost $8,693..#32 cost $516..#4 cost $318,,so if you caught a tree limb it could cast you $9,527...WOW
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The way things are going in the World with the USA the rich/lucky American farmers will have a mule the rest will do it all by hand.All with be sharecroppers with the Chinese owners.
 
One of the things that I have thought in the past, and have seen echoed over and over again is about electronic components that will go bad on modern vehicles and that will keep the vehicles from ever being around in 50/75 years.

One of the things that really amazes me is the knowledge that younger people have about electronics. In all reality, these computer controls are not that complicated if you break them down, and chances are, they will be reproduced. I some cases, they could be done by high school students in a electronics class. I never knew some things existed until the internet came around. Some things I thought were so amazing are relatively ho-hum to me now.

Just an example...


While looking online for a electric pop-up fertilizer system, I found a video of a young kid(probably college age, or high school) who had made a liquid rate controller from scratch and wrote the computer code to control it. 25 years ago, you wouldn't see that outside of MIT or CMU. Now, it is just some kid playing in his basement. The technology now is such that it makes older technology seem so trivial. The technology to build such electronic components increases every day.

It used to be that I and a handful of others could go to radio shack(back when they actually sold ham radio stuff) and rummage through the bins and bins of components and grab some circuit boards and create my own circuits. (I also used to remember what the stripes on the diodes meant from memory) Now, Radio Shack is dead. Digi-Key is my answer now, but in some cases, half the stuff in the book goes over my head, and finding what I need is getting harder because it is buried in things that are way better now.

Basically, I think that hobbyists and fanatics alike will keep the electronics alive as things age. It might be in someone's basement, but, it will happen.
 
Never mind the tractors.
If things don't change..In fifty years the west will be under nnalert control, most of the infidels will be dead and farming will be done with camels and donkeys and women.
 

In fifty years I can see computer update kits sold for the vintage machines built in 2014. Tractors will still be on wheels or tracks and will not travel faster in the field than they do today. I don't see much tillage being done. The western aquifers that feed irrigation wells might be recharged from wetter weather conditions, then again, maybe not. Farm chemical use? I don't know the answer. GMO's will be prevalent.
 
Run out of food? I really doubt it. There is so much land here in the US that isn't farmed any longer that it numbers in the millions of acres. Plus you have many areas of the world with land that could be farmed that never has been. Then add in increased yields over the last 50 to 100 years. Unless some clown turns millions of square miles of land into a nuclear wasteland the world will be able to feed itself for some time.

Tractor? Will they be collectable? Sure, everything else is. It will just become more expensive to keep em running. If anything is going to kill the hobby of collecting farm tractors it's the failure to keep/entice enough young people involved/get involved in the hobby. I have no idea what they will look like.

China own us? I heard this song before. Except then it was the Japanese. Wonder what ever happened with that????

Rick
 
I think collecting will end up in the museums. Farming is becoming big business with the same emotional connections and loyalty that other big businesses have.
 
I honestly believe they won't change a whole lot from what we have now.

Look at tractors built in 1950 and then 1980, a 30 year leap. Big changes were made.
Now look at 1980 vs. 2010, another 30 year jump. Hmm, different but not as dramatic. Yes, now the sheet metal is aero and hood lines a little lower but most changes were on the inside such as electronic transmissions. The layout and funtions are largely the same.

What happens is that certain conventional ideas work well and technology converges. The low hanging fruit it picked and the work switches to making if more efficient or convenient to operate.

Do the same decade by decade analysis with aircraft and the results are the same. An airplane built in 1980 looks quite a lot like one built today, but vastly different from one built in 1950. Again the changes from 1980 are to avionics and engine efficiency.

I don't see the autonomous tractor thing happening in a big way. When you ad all the controls and inputs necessary for that type of operation you also greatly increase the chance that something will go wrong with it. Simply put, too may parts!

For the same reason we don't have pilot-less airliners we probably won't have driver-less tractors. The liability and consequences are too dire if one gets loose. A 150 horse tractor would do a number on somebody's house! In our area the fields go right up and into the towns.

Autopilots on aircraft fail/malfunction every day and GPS signals are relatively weak and prone to interference and jamming by accidental sources. I've seen it in person!

The military makes good use of remote operated drones, but sometime look at how many they've lost!

Cost will also be a factor. I haven't shopped so someone fill me in; How much does a brand new 150 horse Deere cost? How much more will it cost to ad a reliable self driving system?

My guess is that for most operators it won't pencil out with 3 dollar corn. As emerging economies adopt high yield GMOs commodity prices will stabilize at moderate levels.
 
Today's so-called muscle cars and hot rods, yes. Like the Challengers, Camaros, and Mustangs. But with all the cookie cutter, economical jelly bean disposable Asian-looking cars and SUVs being driven today, I can't see anybody wanting to gawk at them at a car show in the future. Car show people love chrome, but now we live in an age of plastic bumpers.
 
In 50 years I'm thinking it'll be highly likely they'll be robotic with no need for cabs. With autosteer and GPS monitoring on them now it's not a big leap that soon they will not need an operator. Think of where computers have come in the past 20 years--50 years from now it'll be a shame if they aren't robotic.

It'll also be sad if they are. With all this robotic help what will people be doing? Sure some folks will be "programming" them but there is no need for that many programmers. And you have to figure other industries will be making similar changes too. I guess non programmers will be laying around on the beach not working--not making any money--unable to buy a drone delivered Mai Tai.
 
I suspect future developments in tractors and combines will concentrate on higher capacity, improved efficiency, combined operations, and lower harvest losses.

Since the 1980's farming has shifted from family farms to corporate farms with non-family employees. Farm employment has dropped a lot since then.

I really doubt that many 1970's and 1980's tractors will be collectable, much less the tractors from the 2010's. Some might become museum pieces, but they won't be widely collected. They were not the common experience of their time and are now are too large and too expensive to collect, similar to semi tractors, grain driers, CNC lathes and other expensive pieces of industrial equipment. A few multi-millionaires might collect them. Most people who did not admire those machines in their teens and twenties will not be very interested.
 
You mention three dollar corn. This is a real possibility along with low wheat, soybean, beef, pork, etc prices. A fair number of people think we are entering a 30 year low price commidities cycle. Too many factors to consider to predict very much. Available financing, interest rates, taxes, economic cycles, dumb presidents and congress, etc.
It is all above my pay grade.
 
I do not believe there will be any tractors manufactured in this country anymore. Diesel fuel will be replaced with natural gas in trucks, combines and tractors.
 
I remember seeing pictures of something similar in an old M&W magazine from the 1960s. They had a picture of "harvesting" like it was on the moon, even the operator had a space suit on.
 
In 50 years there will be two kinds of tractors and they will be in no way similar. The commercial farms will have a highly specialized machine and the hobby farms will have something not too different in what they are today. The hobby tractors may look like a zero turn mower.
 
I don't believe there will be the same appreciation for them as it was the modernization of farms from horses and manual labor. Unless we progress to flying tractors the same advances wont be taken the way they were back then.
 
It's one thing to have steady prices, either high or low. Really tough when you have a volatile market. Makes it difficult to know when to spend on new equip/facilities. Corn ethanol exposes farmers to the typical volatility you see in the energy markets.
 
The guys collecting today's tractors won't be mechanically inclined, instead they will be electrical and computer programming whizzes, repairing the de-magic-smoked electronics and programming out the obsolete emissions equipment that has taken them out of service.
 
there will be small farmers, hobby farmers, and large gardeners for a long long time. Our old tractors were designed to run forever. I feel they will be working another 50 years. The little Kabotas may be the 8ns of the future
 
2 or 3 years ago, I had the privilege of touring Kinze Manufacturing and then we all go to go over to John's place and see his private collection. Impressive doesn't begin to describe it. John came out and talked to us and said he was working on an autonomous planting system. He didn't use GPS, too unreliable. I think he said that they set a laser type controller in each corner of the field, drive the tractor and planter around the perimeter of the field and then turn the tractor loose. It was set up so if anything went wrong, it would shut the tractor down and the operator had to check for what was the problem. His theory was that one man could operate 3 tractors and 12 row planters at the same time. He could be filling one planter while the other 2 were running as opposed to having a 48 or 60 row planter and taking a hour or so to fill all the boxes, 3 smaller tractors compared to one extra large tractor. The filled planter could start planting anywhere in the field and the rows would be correct. He said they had planted over 1000 acres with the system that year. Haven't heard anymore about it since then. If anyone can make it work, it will be John Kinzenbaw.
 
Bison, what you are saying is incredible. It will take a whole new skill set just to figure out how to harness the women to a plow. Do we even know how many women will be required to pull a two bottom plow?
 
Bison I think your right if we keep on the path we are going on now. Iam not going to see it but I think future generations are going to see starvation in this country.
 
The only way I see any starvation scenario in this country, or any developed country is if there is a major war or massive civil unrest, or some sort of plague. A few years ago a milestone was reached on earth, there are now more obese people on the planet than ones who are starving.

As far as tractors, the current tractors will be repairable using 3D printers and reverse engineering the parts and electronics. Look at the new parts that can be bought for 60's and 70's cars.

As far as the new tractors in the future, someone earlier made the comment that the low hanging fruit had been picked. Probably a good metaphor. I foresee diesel/LP/CNG-electric tractors. With an electric motor for each drive wheel, think of the traction control that you could have. Infinite speed at each wheel at any time. No gear transmissions. I think one of the biggest Cat dozers is a diesel-electric right now.

Drone/remote controls machines will be commonplace.

(quoted from post at 09:42:09 12/29/14) Bison I think your right if we keep on the path we are going on now. Iam not going to see it but I think future generations are going to see starvation in this country.
 

Has the passenger car really changed that much since the 1920's ? The general layout has remained unchanged . Same goes for farm tractors. The same machine with more bells, whistles and controllers. The airplane and nuclear reactor really hasn't changed in 50yrs either.
 
(quoted from post at 21:07:16 12/28/14) Bison, what you are saying is incredible. It will take a whole new skill set just to figure out how to harness the women to a plow.[b:9d6dc165fe] Do we even know how many women will be required to pull a two bottom plow[/b:9d6dc165fe]?
bout 14 will do i guess :lol:
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