Jerry Checks Out Rare Vintage Allis Chalmers Tractor at Soybean Harvest Broadcast

Roger and Rhonda Toquam, the boys and Orlo hosted the annual soybean harvest broadcast at their farm by Claremont. Special thanks go to the Toquams, along with Troy from Cashwise in Owatonna, for bringing the great lunch! It was a busy time for Roger and the boys as they were loading pigs at 11:30, stopped a few minutes for lunch and then started combining beans.

In the picture is Troy from Cashwise and Orlo with me sitting on Orlo's Allis Chalmers WD45. Yes, Orlo let me sit on his WD45 but would not trust me to drive it! The Allis Chalmers WD45 was a very popular tractor in its day. This one is a little more rare because it is a diesel. The WD45 diesel tractors had a bad reputation because their heads had a tendency to crack. Orlo said the heads cracked because farmers did not know how to run a diesel tractor at that time. Orlo said that he never had any problem with a cracked head because he never shut the tractor off when it was hot. All you had to do is let it idle a while to cool down before you shut it off.

In the gallery are some pictures of Roger's big Gleaner combine with a 40-foot head. Yes, every pass across the field Roger harvests 16 rows of beans. When the combine grain take is full, the grain cart pulls along side and they unload on the go. The cart then takes the beans to the semi on the road. Notice all the computer monitors in the cab. All the computers keep track of the yield across the field, the moisture and monitor the operation of the combine.