Combine harvester: history and modernity

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

Agriculture uses a wide variety of machinery, both broad and narrow applications. Moreover, some of its species work all year round, while others stand idle in hangars most of the time. But farmers cannot do without either technique. So, for example, during the harvest on the field you can see a grain harvester, which in our time does the work of a dozen mowers. And it is a very complex grain harvester that performs several operations in a continuous flow and sequentially. The harvester cuts the cereals, feeds them to the threshing machine and grinds the grain from the ears. Then he separates it from straw and other impurities and transports it to the bunker. And from it already from time to time or even continuously mechanically unloads grain to another transport.

In principle, a combine harvester replaces three simpler machines at once - a harvester, a winnower and a thresher. And additional knots can be attached to it, which allow you to harvest various crops. And the birthplace of this miracle of technology is the United States. Back in 1828, the inventor S. Lane patented a complexcombined machine for harvesting grain crops. She had to cut the grain plant, thresh it, and also clean the grain from the husk. But it was never built. And in 1836, two inventors from the same America had already mounted something similar to a combine harvester. It looked like a 4 wheeled cart. And the rotation of the drive of the cutting unit and the threshing drum was carried out by a transmission from the rear axle.

But the harvester, structurally reminiscent of modern models, was obtained in 1836 by two other inventors - J. Hascall and H. Moore. And this machine harvested 600 acres of grain already in 1854. Then, gradually, the combine harvester improved more and more along with the development of technology. And in Russia, the first such machine, manufactured by Holt, was brought in 1913. It was a wooden structure on a caterpillar track. She had a gasoline engine that simultaneously powered the mechanisms for cleaning and for movement. But they did not have time to use this combine, since the war soon began.

And under the USSR, they returned to combines again. At first they were imported from the USA, while setting up their own production in parallel. And in 1930, the first combine harvester left the gates of the Zaporizhia Kommunar plant, the price of which corresponded to the work of many people. And by the end of the same year, the factory workers had already produced 347 of these machines. A year later, the Rostov plant "Rostselmash" began to produce the famous "Stalinists". And in 1932, the production of combines was launched in Saratov at the Shelbodaev plant. These modelswere far from perfect, but they helped the villagers thoroughly. And after the war, serious scientific research was carried out in the Union, which resulted in the SK-5 and SK-6 models. Then, since 1970, the Taganrog plant began to produce the Kolos or SK-6-ll combine harvester, and Rostselmash - the Niva SK-5.

And these machines for a long time plowed the fields of the Soviet Union, and then independent states. And now they have been replaced by more modern models, such as the Polesie combine harvester KZS-812-16. It is a compact and manoeuvrable machine that has a throughput of more than 8 kg/s. It is capable of producing over 12 tons of grain per hour. This machine belongs to the type of harvesters that have already received wide recognition. They have one threshing drum, beater and keyboard straw walker. And this combine "Polesie" includes a grain harvester ZhZK-6-5 and a self-propelled thresher model KZK-8-0100000.