Dillon from Broadacre Contracting yarns with Jimmy from Pitson Contracting about building a family-run...
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Legends, hope your day is going alright.
But if you need my help, there is a possibility it probably is not.
Anyway, as the boys on the Catch My Drift podcast say, a problem shared is a problem halved.
Jump on and check the boys out too. They run an unreal podcast.
Need a harvest contractor?
If you need an agriculture or harvest contractor in the North East region, whether that is Tungamah, Cobram, Numurkah, Nathalia, Shepparton, Benalla, Euroa, Violet Town, Wangaratta, Yarrawonga or anywhere across the Murray corridor, give Dillon at Broadacre Contracting a call on 0439 300 380.
We will attempt to solve your problem straight away.
If you are a contractor who needs help or gear to hire, the same applies. Just call us.
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We generally say we are available from 6am to 9pm, but honestly, if it is urgent, it is urgent.
We know the industry, so we work in its time.
There is a reason I have a bed in the office.
Harvest and the hay game do not stop when they are on, so I cannot stop either.
Some of the best conversations I have had are with growers and contractors at 2 in the morning.
We are ag.
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Make sure you come back to enjoy this yarn about 50 years of harvest contracting, a brand new machine, and what tomorrow looks like for the Australian cropping sector.
For this episode of Talking Gear Tuesday, Dillon from Broadacre Contracting is catching up with Matt from Bourke Harvesting at Tungamah in north-east Victoria.
This is a three-generation, 50-year-old harvest contracting business that runs 100% on contract income.
No farm.
No off-farm safety net.
Just headers, service and a highly respected reputation.
Right now, they have their hands on two of the biggest releases in Australian harvesting: the New Holland CR11 and the Case AF10.
Two brand new machines.
Two different colours.
Both in one fleet.
This week we are talking about the CR11, and next week we will talk about the AF10.
If you are not familiar with Tungamah, it sits in the Moira Shire in north-east Victoria, between Shepparton and Cobram.
You have Numurkah and Nathalia nearby, Yarrawonga and Mulwala to the east, and the broader Murray corridor stretching from Finley and Berrigan across to Benalla, Euroa and Violet Town.
This is serious cropping country, and it is where Bourke Harvesting calls home.
At Broadacre Contracting, we are wondering what tomorrow’s cropping will look like.
Bourke Harvesting has tomorrow, today.
Enough of my salesman yarn and yapping on.
It is time to dive into the New Holland CR11 and one of Australia’s most respected harvest contractors.
Bourke Harvesting.
In this episode, we jump into the New Holland CR11 with a Bourke Harvesting team member.
On the front is a MacDon FD261, 61 foot, on a CR11 New Holland combine.
The next-generation machine was released to the public in Australia this year, and it is pretty impressive.
For the operator in the cab, it was his first time in a yellow machine after coming up from the red ones.
New screens.
New handpiece.
New console.
But as far as operating goes, he said it is very similar to the other machines Bourke Harvesting runs.
Obviously, having a 61ft front is a bit bigger than what they are usually used to.
They usually run 40s or 45s.
So this is the biggest machine around with the biggest front around, which is pretty impressive.
You get used to it after a while.
It just feels normal, he reckons.
A bit of background for anyone who is not familiar with Bourke Harvesting.
Bourke Harvesting runs Case and New Holland machines.
Across the board, they are running Class 8 and Class 9 machines, and a lot of them.
I do not know the exact figure in total, but I do not really feel the machine number is too important here.
It does state capability, but the focus should be around the gear they are running and their knowledge of that gear.
As you are probably here looking for, the team has stepped it up from standard Class 8s and 9s and dived into the next generation headers: the New Holland CR11 and Case AF10.
The boys mentioned they are running the FD261 61 footer, but honestly, I call it a 60 foot front.
Almost everyone does at paddock level.
The dealers and brochures refer to them as the 261 or 61 foot.
Either way, the boys have to run these fronts because the capacity of these animals of a machine needs them.
You can run this gear on 40, 45 and 50 foot fronts, but it has been shown that the 60 foot front gets these machines closer to peak capacity.
If we really think about that, it is all in the wording.
These things are animals.
I have seen hundreds of headers.
When I stand near or jump in one of these New Holland CR11s or Case AF10s, I am blown away.
Blown away that much that the hair left on top of my head is falling off.
For anyone reading who has not seen the CR11 yet, this is New Holland’s next-generation combine.
It builds on the CR series that contractors like Kanimbla Contracting have been running for years.
The CRs Kanimbla are running are mental too.
The grain loss is next to nothing, yet they are still getting the capacity out of them.
It is just mental across the board.
The power this thing has is pretty incredible.
The operator said you can sit at capacity, push it harder, and it just will not block.
It keeps eating.
The grain loss out the back is pretty much non-existent.
You do not really find any grain out the back, even when you are pushing it to capacity.
Lower-tier machines are often limited by grain loss.
This one, at the minute, is not.
You can push as hard as it wants to go and it will not throw it out the back.
It fills up quickly, obviously, because there is a lot more product coming through with a 61ft front.
It has a way bigger bin and it unloads a lot faster.
The unload rate is 220 litres per second.
That is a lot of product.
Non-existent grain loss at capacity.
Let me just say that again for anyone who skimmed it.
It is non-existent grain loss at capacity.
If you are a mixed-farming enterprise, then I suppose it might not matter as much because sheep might clean some of it up.
But across the board, it is still money out the back.
I could get our team to draft up a photo.
A header stripping, and out the back would be pineapples.
Fifty-dollar notes.
What I am really interested in is what those losses could amount to.
So I am going to advise you to get your compass out, just in case we get lost here.
I am going on a Dillon side mission.
Righto, I strongly suggest you pull out your compass.
This is a proper Dillon side mission, and you could end up lost here, but I think every grower and contractor in Australia needs to see these numbers.
The GRDC-funded work around harvest losses in Western Australia reported that more than $320 million worth of grain was left in paddocks during the 2022/23 harvest from front and machine losses across cereals, canola and grain legumes.
That is serious money.
Important note though: those figures include both front losses and machine losses.
Front losses come down to the header front, crop conditions and how it is set up.
Machine loss is the grain coming out the back of the header.
That is the part we are focusing on here.
We are not pretending these numbers are exact for every paddock.
This is a practical guide to help growers and contractors think about grain loss in dollars, not just percentages.
I am going to use $370 per tonne as a conservative grain price for the rough maths below.
Use your own current price, your own yields and your own paddock measurements before making decisions.
This is not financial advice.
1,000 hectare program at 4t/ha:
3,000 hectare program at 4t/ha:
5,000 hectare program at 4t/ha:
10,000 hectare program at 4t/ha:
Read those numbers again.
Doing 5,000 hectares at 4t/ha in wheat and pushing a machine at 1.5% loss is leaving around $111,000 worth of grain on the ground.
That is not a small operational detail.
That is a business conversation.
New Holland talks about near-zero losses, and the operator in this episode said the grain loss was pretty much non-existent.
We do not have a verified drop-tray measurement from this episode, so I am not going to write this like a lab test.
Instead, let us model three practical scenarios of what near-zero could mean.
Say the CR11 was running at 0.2%, 0.5% or 0.7% machine loss.
Compare that against a Class 8 or 9 machine running at 1.5% machine loss.
On 5,000ha at 4t/ha and $370/t:
Potential saving:
Even at the worst-case near-zero scenario of 0.7%, a grower doing 5,000 hectares could still be keeping nearly $60,000 more grain in the bin compared with 1.5% machine loss.
At 0.2%, it is nearly $100,000.
It does not matter if the number is 0.2, 0.5 or 0.7.
The difference is significant regardless.
That is not just a machine upgrade conversation.
That is a financial argument you can take to the bank manager.
The real comparison is this.
A well-set-up Class 8 or 9 machine running at conservative speeds can achieve good losses.
We know this.
But can we always run at conservative speeds?
Harvest windows are small.
The weather is unpredictable.
The grower needs the crop off.
Humans are in seats.
Crop conditions are changing.
Fatigue creeps in.
Losses go up for many reasons and variables.
So the question is, is the CR11 really changing all of this?
What the CR11 appears to do differently, based on what we are hearing from inside the cab, is remove part of that equation.
You can push it to capacity.
You can put it into different conditions.
From what we are seeing so far, the grain stays in.
I want to get around these machines more.
I want to build a documentary series about them and bring this to the attention of Australian agriculture, even worldwide.
New Holland, let me do this.
Do it with me.
Do it with Broadacre Contracting.
Let us do it with Bourke Harvesting, one of the most respected harvest contractors in Australia.
Let us do something no one has ever done.
When was the last time you put a drop tray behind the headers in the paddock?
When was the last time you measured what is actually coming out the back?
If the answer is never, I would encourage you to do it this harvest.
You might be surprised.
If you are losing 1.5% or more, run the numbers above for your own program size and ask yourself if that is acceptable.
We are going from one side mission to another side mission.
Let us kick it into gear.
I want to go deep here, mainly around the specs of the gear, which you can find in brochures, but from there I want to break down where I see the issues of these machines.
New Holland pioneered Twin Rotor technology back in 1975 with the launch of the TR70.
That is 50 years of Twin Rotor development, and the CR11 is where it has all led to.
Every iteration.
Every improvement.
Every lesson learned from millions of hectares harvested around the world.
It is all sitting in this header.
We talked about this history in our yarn with Kanimbla Contracting, where Andy took us through the TR98 era and how Twin Rotor changed everything for their operation.
The CR11 is the latest and greatest evolution of that same technology.
The operator told us the grain loss out the back is pretty much non-existent.
That is not marketing hype from me.
That is what we are hearing from the cab and what we saw at the time.
The system behind that is New Holland’s TwinClean cleaning system.
In plain English, the CR11 uses a double-cleaning shoe and automated crop flow management to keep the machine fed and cleaned properly across changing conditions.
IntelliSense automation also continuously works with machine settings such as rotor speed, concave clearance, fan speed and sieve openings based on real-time crop conditions.
Now, I cannot fully comment on this because I have not been around it long enough.
But I have been around automation elsewhere.
It normally has a good baseline, but it is far from where it is going to end up.
If it is ironed out properly in the CR11, then you have a machine that is essentially setting itself.
Minimum to no losses and maximum throughput.
The operator barely has to touch anything.
For a harvest contractor like Bourke Harvesting running multiple machines with different operators, that is significant.
Consistency across the fleet, regardless of who is in the cab, matters.
Now let us talk about what is feeding this thing.
A MacDon FD261 FlexDraper.
61 feet.
18.6 metres.
The biggest FlexDraper MacDon has produced.
The FD261 gives 22% more capacity than the 50-foot FD250.
The FD261 gives the CR11 the intake it needs.
That is the thing with these next-generation headers.
If you do not feed them, you are not using them.
Put a huge machine behind a front that cannot keep it full, and you are not seeing the value.
The machine, the front, the chaser bin, the trucks, the storage and the delivery point all have to match.
That is where the real conversation starts.
I have spent a fair bit of this article talking up the CR11 and the FD261.
They deserve the praise.
But I am not here to sell gear for New Holland.
I am here to give growers and contractors the full picture based on what we are seeing and thinking.
Broadacre Contracting is here for real talk, not brochure talk.
The first thing that comes straight to mind is keeping grain away from the header.
I was recently on the Catch My Drift podcast, and I said when you are looking at buying gear and getting into business, do not go buy the newest, flashiest, most expensive bit of kit.
Start small with something like a chaser bin.
Not advice, just a suggestion from what I am seeing.
The reason is simple.
As gear gets bigger, chaser bins and grain logistics become more important.
If we do not have the infrastructure or bigger gear that can handle these headers, then their capacity can become pointless.
A CR11 is only as useful as the system around it.
Say we are having a good year out at Coonamble, and wheat is pushing 5t/ha.
These headers are born for that country.
Big hectares.
Solid crop.
But if you are out on Carinda Road, 70km from GrainCorp or another delivery point, trucks are on a long turnaround, and grain cannot be stored on farm, then the header capacity can get trapped.
The machine might be able to chew, but the system cannot get grain away fast enough.
That is where on-farm storage, chaser bin capacity, truck availability and delivery point efficiency all come into play.
For readers out west, our grain receival setups on the eastern seaboard are not like CBH.
Very different traffic flows.
I am not going down the who-does-it-better road, but on the eastern seaboard, everyone involved in harvesting understands transport delays.
Simple, honest and clear.
With big headers and 60-foot fronts, you need to be cautious around trees and objects in paddocks and on headlands.
If the windrower contractor is onto it, they will windrow in the direction that keeps the unload auger in the crop, which reduces some risk when cutting headlands.
But it is still an issue from my point of view.
You could run with augers folded, but is that helping efficiency?
I do not think so.
One way to handle it is to have a smaller class machine sweep through, do the headlands and handle the inefficient work while the big machine gets left to chew.
We do not have the exact price, but a CR11 with a 61ft MacDon front is going to have plenty of zeros in it.
Price is a funny conversation.
It is much like contractor rates.
We always say pay a bit more per rotor hour for a good contractor and you can save double that from losses and job quality.
We broke down losses earlier for a reason.
So the question becomes, is the price tag actually big?
I do not know.
I cannot answer that for every grower or contractor.
If I owned 5,000 hectares, or if I was a contractor, I would break the figures down around grain loss, spraying costs, time savings, labour, risk, finance and logistics.
So is the price tag big?
I do not know. But does it have a few zeros in it? Yup.
This is the most important part.
Reliability, parts, dealer backup and diagnostic knowledge.
It is brand new to Australia.
First season in the paddock.
The dealer network is still learning the machine.
Parts availability for a first-run model is always a risk.
If something goes wrong that is unique to the CR11 and has not been seen before, how long are you waiting?
We talked about the importance of dealer support in Episode 16 with Perry Farming and RDO Equipment.
When you are running a brand new machine, dealer capability matters more than ever.
Ask the hard questions before taking this gear on.
And make sure you are satisfied with the answers.
That is what Broadacre Contracting is here for.
Real talk, not brochure talk.
Hopefully helping guide you, answer the questions you are searching for and build confidence before the decision gets made.
Here is something most people in cropping know, but it is worth stating.
The New Holland CR11 and the Case AF10 are made under the same parent company.
CNH Industrial owns both New Holland Agriculture and Case IH.
Different colours.
Different factories.
Different engineering teams.
Different rotor philosophies.
But the same parent company.
Bourke Harvesting bought both.
The CR11 and the AF10.
Yellow and red.
From the same parent company.
Two different machines, two different rotor philosophies, same fleet, same harvest, same conditions.
That is not a colour war.
That is a contractor making a calculated decision to test both offerings and determine what works best for their operation.
Or maybe both work, for different situations.
Twin rotor versus single rotor has been debated for decades.
Bourke Harvesting is about to give us real answers from real paddocks.
Right, I am going to put this out here because I think there is a massive opportunity that has not been explored.
CNH, New Holland, Case IH, whoever is reading this from the manufacturer side: Broadacre Contracting wants to bring the camera lens to your operation.
We want to walk through the factory floor.
We want to sit down with your engineers and understand the decisions behind where a rotor goes, why the cleaning shoe is shaped the way it is, and how you determine airflow patterns through the machine.
Our community, the growers, contractors and operators, they want to know this stuff.
They want to understand the R&D.
They want to know why their machine is designed the way it is.
No one is really providing that content in Australia right now.
We are trusted. We are respected. We have an idea.
It is just a case of who is going to take it up first.
Once it starts, we will not stop.
We are industry-based.
We do not favour one flavour.
What we do is help build trust for everyone and everything that has it waiting.
Call Dillon on 0439 300 380.
Let us make something happen.
The sector wants it, the dealers want it, and I want it.
Car salesman approach, side mission complete.
Matt Bourke breaks it down for us.
It all started with his dad and grandfather all those years back.
He remembers going away harvesting and living away for that period of the year.
Following his grandfather and dad around.
Learning from them.
Then Matt said something that really matters.
“There would be very few contractors, especially larger scale ones, that are just 100% contracting income. We do not have a farm or anything like that. So contracting is our livelihood. It is our passion. And I am just a beneficiary of a lot of their hard work.”
Very interesting.
Firstly, what a way to be raised.
How bloody good.
There is a saying: it is in the blood.
I am going to say it is in the blood, and I can almost guarantee Matt will keep it going with his family and kids.
He has made a very valid point.
Most larger-scale contractors have a farm underneath them as a safety net.
Something to fall back on when the seasons do not deliver contracting work.
Bourke Harvesting does not have that.
Every dollar comes from the headers, the service and the relationships they have built over half a century.
That means every decision carries more weight.
Relationships are more important.
Everything hinges off the one thing.
Contracting.
I am a bit mixed on this myself, but that is me, my personality and my business approach.
I am more of a spread-yourself type.
But only where you can and as far as you can.
If you spread yourself and start dropping quality on the main business, then you are putting yourself into hot water.
But if you do not do that, and make yourself really good at the one thing you do, then you can achieve what you want.
There is no right or wrong way with business.
All your eggs in one basket, or eggs spread out in a few baskets.
The main point is this.
Do not write cheques you cannot cash.
Matt says he is a beneficiary of the family’s hard work.
But maintaining a 50-year business is its own kind of hard work.
The foundation was laid, but the current generation still has to deliver every single season.
One bad year, one lost client relationship, one machine that does not perform, and it impacts the entire business with no farm buffer.
I asked Matt about a celebration they had early in harvest for 30 years of a client relationship with Dalton Farming.
What holds that type of relationship?
Matt said 30 years at Dalton Farming is phenomenal.
Phenomenal people and a great client.
And they are just one of many.
Matt is the third generation, so the family before him laid the foundation and he gets to pick up where they left off.
But he also made it clear that you cannot just be there to supply a machine.
You have to supply the service that goes with it.
You need to make sure you are getting the job done the right way and working closely with your clients.
There you go.
Everything I was talking about above has just come into a complete explanation from Matt himself.
Bourke Harvesting knows what they are doing.
Can these types of relationships be maintained if you are diversified?
I do not know the answer to my own question.
But what we do know is if you are not diversified, there is a very good chance you can maintain those relationships because all focus is on that one thing.
Fifty years.
Three generations.
No farm.
Pure contracting.
Every contracting business has its followers, its supporters, the people who back them and respect them.
But I will say the Bourke Harvesting team has a lot of respect and a high position of advocacy in the cropping sector.
Thirty years with one client. Stop and think about what that actually means.
Recently, when I was on the Catch My Drift podcast, I was asked to give a contractor story.
This was the story.
As I said to the boys, this story has no relation to Broadacre Contracting.
This relationship was explained to me by Matt when I asked about the Facebook post.
But I brought it up because this is impressive, and this is what I want to help create at Broadacre Contracting.
I want the growers and contractors we help connect to have their kids talking about it later.
Broadacre Contracting helped connect us, and now we are here drinking beers together 20 years later.
Matt nails it.
You cannot just supply a machine.
You have to supply the service that goes with it.
That is the difference between a contractor who lasts 5 years and one who lasts 50.
The machine gets the crop off.
The service keeps the client.
At Broadacre Contracting, this is exactly what we look for when we verify contractors for our directory.
We do not just check the gear.
We care about the relationships, the standards, the communication and the reliability.
Because at the end of the day, a grower does not just need a header in the paddock.
They need someone they can trust to do the job right, communicate well and come back next year.
Broadacre Contracting operates a verified contractor directory that connects growers directly with harvest contractors across north-east Victoria and the Murray corridor.
Here is how it works.
You post a job on the Broadacre Contracting website.
An instant alert goes out to verified contractors covering your region.
Your phone rings.
Direct contact between you and the contractor.
We do not take commissions, we do not get in the middle of your pricing, and we do not broker the deal.
We connect you with accountable operators and let you sort the rest out between yourselves.
We cover harvest contractors across Tungamah, Cobram, Numurkah, Nathalia, Shepparton, Benalla, Euroa, Violet Town, Wangaratta, Yarrawonga, Mulwala, Finley, Berrigan, Jerilderie, Tocumwal and anywhere else in Australia.
Whether you need a header with a 40ft front or the biggest machine in the country with a 61ft MacDon, Broadacre Contracting is your first call.
Give Dillon a call on 0439 300 380 from 6am to 9pm.
We would love to have a yarn about what you need and connect you with the right operator.
These resources may help growers and contractors watch the episode, compare the next-generation machines, understand grain loss and find harvest contractors.
If you are looking for a harvest contractor around Tungamah, Cobram, Numurkah, Nathalia, Shepparton, Benalla, Euroa, Yarrawonga, Mulwala, Finley, Berrigan, Jerilderie or anywhere across the Murray corridor, Broadacre Contracting gives you a clearer place to start.
Watch the Bourke Harvesting CR11 episode, browse harvest contractor listings or post a tender so verified contractors can see the job and contact you directly.
The New Holland CR11 is New Holland’s next-generation combine harvester. It features 775hp maximum power, Twin Rotor technology, a 20,000L grain tank, TwinClean cleaning system and high-capacity harvesting design. In this Talking Gear Tuesday episode, Bourke Harvesting runs the CR11 with a MacDon FD261 61ft FlexDraper front.
The MacDon FD261 is a 61ft FlexDraper front. MacDon describes it as the biggest FlexDraper header it has produced, with 50-inch deep drapers and 22% more capacity than the 50ft FD250.
Bourke Harvesting is a three-generation harvest contracting business based in Tungamah, north-east Victoria. The business has been operating for around 50 years and runs on 100% contracting income, with no farm safety net.
The Case AF10 is Case IH’s next-generation combine harvester. Bourke Harvesting runs both the New Holland CR11 and Case AF10 in the same fleet, giving growers and contractors a rare real-world comparison of the two next-generation machines.
The New Holland CR11 unloads at 220 litres per second. Combined with a 20,000L grain tank, that unload rate is designed to help keep the machine cutting and reduce time sitting at the chaser bin.
This article covers the CR11. The AF10 is covered in the next Bourke Harvesting episode. The useful comparison is not colour wars; it is how both machines perform in the same fleet, same season and similar conditions.
It depends on the machine, setup, front, operator, crop and conditions. GRDC-supported harvest loss work in Western Australia showed huge value can be left in paddocks from front and machine losses. The safest answer is to measure your own losses with a drop tray and use your own crop price and yield to calculate the cost.
Call Dillon at Broadacre Contracting on 0439 300 380. Broadacre connects growers with verified harvest contractors across Tungamah, Cobram, Numurkah, Shepparton, Benalla and the broader north-east Victoria and Murray corridor region.
Talking Gear Tuesday is Broadacre Contracting’s video series where we sit down with growers, contractors and ag operators to yarn about gear, businesses, risks, lessons and the real stories behind Australian agriculture.
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