Are we nearing “peak combine harvester”?
Certain man-made structures and equipment might be reaching their size limits in their current form.
For example, a single ULCC (Ultra Large Crude Carrier) oil tanker can hold 2 million barrels of oil, which can fill up 190 Olympic size swimming pools..
Oil tankers today are already at the Panamex and Neo-Panamex standards and tankers larger than what we have today cannot navigate through the Suez Canal. (Remember the Ever Green ship stuck in the Suez Canal for almost a week in 2021?) As you can see from the chart below, oil tanker size peaked a few years ago.
Oil tanker design has focused on other improvements like fuel efficiency and emissions reduction through technologies like wind assist, air lubrication systems etc. to optimize the cost of a delivered gallon instead of just going bigger and bigger.
We see a similar phenomenon play out on land, with agriculture equipment like combine harvesters.
Some of the largest and most powerful combine harvesters today have close to 690 hp, weigh up to 50,000 lbs and can harvest 24 acres of wheat in an hour. It seems agriculture has taken a page from the 'bigger is better' playbook, and now our combines are starting to look like they belong in a Transformers movie.
One of the largest combine harvesters today is John Deere’s X9 1100 combine harvester. Its operating width is the same as an NBA basketball court, it is about two SUVs long, and is as tall as a semi-truck.
We have already seen some challenges with extra large combines due soil compaction and logistics issues. Similar to oil tankers, might we be reaching the limits on size for combine harvesters and need to look to other dimensions for continued improvement?
Are we nearing “peak combine harvester”?
What is a combine harvester?
A combine harvester is a machine which “combines” multiple harvesting operations into one.
“Reaping” involves cutting and gathering the crop in the field.
“Threshing” removes the kernels or seeds of the crop from the rest of the plant, and
“Winnowing” separates the kernel from other plant material like stalks, chaff, or straw.
The first combine harvester was invented in 1835 by Hiram Moore.
It was a large, horse-drawn machine that combined the processes of reaping, threshing, and winnowing grain crops into one operation.
This invention significantly reduced the amount of manual labor required for harvesting, impacting the percentage of Americans working on farms. Combine harvesters are used to harvest crops like corn, soy, wheat, and rice.
Improvements in labor productivity
Combine Harvesters have been improved upon consistently over the last 190 years. Labor productivity improvements for combines in terms of acres harvested per operator hour and bushels harvested per operator hour have happened consistently, with many of the improvements coming through improvements in size, speed, and power.