In 1800, something like 90 percent of the entire US population was employed

working the land; fast-forward 200 years and you'll find only 2 percent of
people are now working this way. What caused that amazing change in
society? One important factor was the development of huge, automated
machines such as combine harvesters that made each agricultural worker
vastly more productive.
The crops we grow in our fields, such as wheat, barley, and rye, are only
partly edible. We can use the seeds at the top of each plant (known as the
grain) to make products like bread and cereal, but the rest of the plant (the
chaf) is inedible and has to be discarded.
Before modern-day machines were developed, agricultural workers had to
harvest crops by carrying out a series of laborious operations one after
another. First they had to cut down the plants with a long-handled cutting
tool such as a scythe. Next, they had to separate the edible grain from the
inedible chaff by beating the cut stalksan operation known as threshing.
Finally, they had to clean any remaining debris away from the seeds to make
them suitable for use in a mill. All this took a lot of time and a lot of people.
Thankfully, modern combine harvesters do the whole job automatically: you
simply drive them through a field of crops and they cut, thresh, and clean the
grains all by themselves using rotating blades, wheels, sieves, and elevators.
The grain collects in a tank inside the combine harvester (which is
periodically emptied into carts pulled by tractors that drive alongside), while
the chaff spurts from a big exit pipe at the back and falls back down onto the
field.
A combine harvester is a machine used to harvest grains like wheat, rye,
barley, oats, corn, flax and soybeans. Instead of using separate machines for
reaping, threshing and winnowing the grain, the harvester combines all these
functions into one machine
The wide header at the front of the harvester gathers the grain into the
combine. The reel moves it towards the cutter bar, where it is sliced off at
the base. The grain then travels up a conveyor to the threshing drum, where
the grains are separated from the stalks. A collecting tank gathers the grain
as it falls through sieves, and straw walkers carry the chaff towards the back
of the harvester. As the grain tank fills, it must be emptied into a trailer
through a side pipe called an unloader. The chaff is either spread out over
the field or baled up for later use.
Different removable heads are designed for the various types of crops.
Standard grain platforms are generally used for wheat, while flex platforms
that can cut closer to the ground are used for soybeans. Corn heads have
snap rolls that remove the ear from the stalk and leaves. Dummy heads pick
up crops that have already been cut. Special combines with mud tracks are
able to harvest rice. For hillsides, combines are fitted with special hydraulic
systems that enable them to level out while they are harvesting.
Combine harvesters are one of the most economically important labor saving
inventions, enabling a smaller fraction of the population to be engaged in
agriculture, making food cheaper to produce. Such mechanization is also

responsible for high unemployment. It is likely that as robotic methods are

introduced to farming that there will be even fewer jobs - and this is not just
in farming.
One of the most important machines in the moderen agriculture is the
combine harvester. To be able to produce enough food in a rational manner it
is important to be able to harvest large amount of all types of cereals very
efficient. In 2005 it was harvested more than 2.2 billion metric tons of
cereals. This illustrates with all clearness what enormous amount one here
must get harvested in short harvesting seasons and these set high demands
to the machines. The need for food will continue to grow and within short
comes also the wish to produce huge amounts of fuel from grain with heavy
political pressure. Then the combines must be even more efficient and
demand less energy and man hour to do the job.