Ernie Mozdzen bought the first 9790 combine in Manitoba, and he is one of the few prairie producers with two full seasons of experience with a hot dry fall in 2003 and a wet, muddy, flooded fall in 2004.
Mozdzen had 1,100 acres of standing oats, with all of it under water last fall. He had two choices: abandon the crop or risk driving his year-old 9790 into the big flat slough.
Not being the type to shy away from a challenge, Mozdzen bolted on a set of wide-spaced duals, attached the new straight-cut header he had bought specifically for soybeans, and attacked the oat field. No rear drive and no tracks.
Read Also
VIDEO: Green Lightning and Nytro Ag win sustainability innovation award
Nytro Ag Corp and Green Lightning recieved an innovation award at Ag in Motion 2025 for the Green Lightning Nitrogen Machine, which converts atmospheric nitrogen into a plant-usable form.
“I only got stuck three times in the whole 1,100 acres,” recalled Mozdzen. “Nobody else in this neighborhood could even get into their fields, not even with rice tires.
“I don’t think I would have considered it without wide-spaced duals, and I know I wouldn’t have tried it with a heavier combine. You can’t drive those big heavy anchors out in this deep mud.
“The other thing was just plain luck that I had already bought the straight-cut header, because normally I swath everything.
“We left some big ruts, so there’s going to be a lot of cultivation to get it ready for seeding. But that’s the kind of harvest we usually get in this area. We seldom see a dry harvest like 2003.
“My farm runs right up to the edge of Oak Hammock Marsh, so it’s a very wet area. And it’s flat. You’ll see standing water from one end of the field to the other. You always have to be ready for a wet harvest in this area. It’s just got to be part of your plan.”
In 2003, Mozdzen said it was so dry when he started that the straw was breaking up and being pulverized.
“They came out and made some modifications to the rotor. I had been overthreshing the straw at first because I didn’t have it set up just right.”
Mozdzen is also a cattle producer, so good baling straw is an important consideration every year. He said baling the 2003 straw with a soft-core baler was no problem after the combine got set up correctly.
“The other thing I’ve found is that for the best straw, you’ve got to cut your grain just a little bit on the greener side, just a little bit tough. When you can do it that way, that’s the best.”
For soybeans, he starts by removing the pans underneath.
“Then I take out a couple of the bars that push the grain out the back. I take out most of the cutting bars. This year, I’m going to raise the front of the concave and leave the back end the same.
“This whole combine is a big learning curve. There’s no doubt about that. But I know a lot more about it now than I did two years ago. I think it shows us that we can have a rotary combine that does a really good job on grain and soybeans and we can still get good straw for baling.”
“Farmers buy different combines for different soil types,” said Jake Voth.
When it came time to replace his Gleaner, the Meadows, Man., farmer tried just about every combine on the market. In 2003, he did part of his harvest with a MF 9790 demo. He signed the papers and finished his fields with it.
“We’re on the outer fringes of the Red River Valley. It’s a heavy black soil, so we grow a tremendous amount of straw. The 9790 has a big throat and a big straw capacity. That was perhaps our biggest reason.”
Voth said the soil is high in clay, so he tries to incorporate the straw whenever possible. His combines always have to be good at chopping and spreading. There are also times when the straw is baled, so he needs a combine with the capacity to put down good baling straw.
“The other feature we liked about the Massey was the formed conveyor or beater or drum at the nose of the rotor. It doesn’t ram the crop into the rotor the way some other combines do. There’s a spiral that sort of sucks the crop into the rotor. The crop doesn’t go through that abrupt change of direction. It flows well when we have tough conditions.”
Voth said that playing with the rotor is simple and even an extensive reconfiguration can be done in the field in less than half an hour.
“There’s two very distinct concepts when you look at configuration,” said Voth. “You can run it as a straight line concave or you can use the taper theory like Deere uses. You can set this combine up so it’s very similar to the Deere STS. And we have these removable covers outside the rotor so you can contain the crop and keep it in there longer or release it sooner, whatever you decide is best for that field. Changing the covers is about a 15-minute job.
“I’d say that this combine is maybe just a little easier to make these changes compared to the other combines we demoed. The only tricky one for us was flax. At first, we had trouble getting the straw to flow through the rotor. We’ve got it working right now. There’s lots of sieve and shoe area, so you have a lot to work with.”
Voth thinks one adjustment is a step backward in combine evolution. That is the variable speed fan, which has two speed ranges, but requires the operator to stop, get out of the cab and spend five minutes changing an idler pulley to go from one range to the other.
Voth ran Gleaners for many years.
“The Gleaner was more forgiving. You’d set it up and keep that setup a lot longer before you had to make adjustments again. The Gleaner also had ease of adjustment for a superior grain sample. Elevator managers always told us our samples were right at the top of things. This Massey isn’t bad, but it takes a little more coaching to get that really nice sample.”
Even with 330 horsepower, Voth said he can power-out the 9790 in really tough conditions with the chopper going.
He said his 9790 is going into the shop for an upgrade that will give him 20 more hp.
Noise is another factor for Voth.
“I’m not saying I’m getting old, but you’re talking to a farmer here who is on the back side of age, so I’m fussy about noise. That’s what I liked about the Deere. It was quiet. I think the 9790 and the Deere are tied as the quietest combine cabs. If we’re talking comparisons, I’d say that overall, the 9790 is as close to the Deere STS as you can get. But I think the best value for my dollar on this particular farm is the Massey.”
