Grand Daughter's New ride!!!

JD Seller

Well-known Member
This is a different JD 4450 for her and a new to us JD 568 baler. The Prior JD 4450 was a quad range and this one is a 15 sp. PS. I bought this tractor with a bad PS. From the flywheel back the power train has been completely reworked. I took every single thing out of the housings and started from scratch. It had been ran with a bad clutch pack until it would not move and there was metal every where. It works well now but like a neighbor says " it just needed some money" LOL well the SOME was bigger than I had planned.

The baler will be a step up. The JD 567 she had been using was the one we bought new in 2002. It had over 85,000 bales through it. More than 2/3s of them corn stalk bales. We do/did major maintenance every winter on them to keep them going but its getting worn. It will be the backup bailer as it is not worth much to sell. The JD 568 has just 9500 bales on it. It has the SUPER large tires on it. You have to watch as they stick out past the tractor tires. We will see how the Mega wide pickup works on corn stalk bales. The other balers we have all are just the Mega pickup and they would out bale the older wide pickups in shredded corn stalks.

We bailed some hay yesterday afternoon and both performed well. AC was a little cool with the weather we have been having. LOL Grand Daughter says to not mess "HER" bailer up until she gets back from vacation or I am in trouble. LOL
a164339.jpg

a164340.jpg
 
I bought a 459 Mega last fall when my 644 caught on fire. Talk about a difference- The NH had twine only and the JD has both twine and net. So far, it's a new experience for me with the net. But I'm getting the hang of it now. The baler only had 1400 baled through it, and looks like new. It had a couple of small issues- one spliced belt that came apart and a bit of netwrap wound around a couple of things. But, once I got it cleared out and have had a chance to work with it, it's not a bad baler. The jury is still out on the NH vs' JD, but I'm liking the JD more as I use it. My 6400 is usually my baling tractor, but I have to use the 2-70 right now because of an electrical problem in the 6400, and the baler is about as much as the 2-70 wants to handle.

But, the 9 series balers seem to be a perty good purchase......
 
That is a super nice looking rig ! Don't know much about the baler it's self , but that tractor sure catches my eye . You just don't see the large Deere tractors in 2 wheel drive around these parts.
And the bigger the tires on the baler ,the better , balers are heavy , especially with a wet bale inside them . Farmers here may need pontoons on their balers instead of tires , to get enough float this year with all of the rain we are getting . Bruce
 
I ran a PS 4450 on a grain cart for a neighbor when it was brand new. If I could have my choice of anything I have ever ran a 4450 would be it, liked that tractor a lot.
 
JD what do you guys do with cornstalk bales? Nice looking rig.

Nice to be able to tear into an older 4000 series and fix what's needed. I had a '79 4230C and really liked it. It was a cosmetically restored 3900 hour unit. I know the turbo makes it a work horse but I didn't need that and besides the 4230 sat next to a 4430 when I bought it, $2k more and 6k more hours. Mine was still nice and tight.
 
Around here there are some stalks baled but primarily hay and cereal straw. I have run and serviced JD balers for over 20 years and have a lot of respect for them. They have big appetites. Curious to know when you bale stalks. Here they are done in the spring and many people say they are hard on the baler as there is a lot of dirt in the stalks after winter snows and rain. What life do you get out of a set of belts. I have seen balers here with 30,000+ bales on the original belts, having only done hay.
 
Tech 7 We bale 90% of the corn stalks in the fall after harvest. They usually are shredded right behind the combine. We usually get 20K or so out of a set of belts. They do wear because of the dirt and how hard corn stalks are anymore. The GMO corn makes a much larger and harder stalk.
 
Texasmark1 The majority are used for bedding with some used for filler in cattle rations. If we have a dry fall and the stalks are good and dry then many of the dairy guys are using them in dry cow rations to dry the rations up that are mostly silage and hayledge.
 
Bruce the two wheel drive 44 series tractors are in heavy use around here. Their roles have change over the years. When they were new they were the "big" field work tractor. Now they are more chore tractors. With the larger TMR wagons you need the HP and weight to be safe. The 90-100 tractor is becoming too small for a lot of general work. Heck the 12-15 foot mower conditioners take 125 HP to mow in thick hay at the speeds you can mow at.

Just had to show something to counter the "orange" ones you post. LOL
 
Over the years I"ve had only PS transmissions...5 of them...can"t stand the labyrinth of a synchro. You couldn"t give me a synchro if I had to keep it. Still have three of the JD PS, and the 4450 15 speed is the best! Nice to have almost twice the speeds, and with the HP cranked to 190, it"s always easy to pop a couple of gears to get through the wet spots doing tillage.
 
I have ran a John Deere round baler a lot when my brother had a ranch in Colorado but what was a real suprize to me was last winter in Arizona I saw a couple John Deere Cotton Pickers with a round balers built right in to the picker that bales and wraps the cotton in plastic and then carries the bale to the end of the field while making the next bale. They were picking six thirty eight inch rows at about four to five miles an hour. I did hear that they were north of $500,000.00 in case anyone wants to go into the cotton business.
 
Thanks for the input. Around here, before the corn explosion, milo was popular. Stalks were baled also. I can remember years when I was happy to get them to feed my cattle. Had to supplement it heavily but as you surely well know, nothing worse than to have hungry cattle in the dead of winter and run out of hay.
 

We sell tractor parts! We have the parts you need to repair your tractor - the right parts. Our low prices and years of research make us your best choice when you need parts. Shop Online Today.

Back
Top