Have to give AGCO well deserved credit.  This year during the start of milo harvest I was having trouble holding the milo in the combine, it was doing pretty good just not what it's capable of capacity wise.  The local salesman and a good personal friend of mine has been complaining to AGCO about the challenges we face cutting milo and for as easy as you would think it is to separate it is actually that hard at times.  Well I couldn't believe it when a guy from the factory called and said he was coming out if he could get a engineer to come along.  I had little faith this would happen as milo is a insignificant crop acre wise across the country, however in central ks, ok, and tx milo is a very important crop for farmers.  Then to my surprise they actually showed up and spent the entire afternoon in the field.  The engineer was a young man and spent most the day outside in a 30 mph wind and 30 degree whether.  If you have been in milo dust you would know that it alone without the wind would get most people out of the field pretty quick.  We figured out pretty quick that we had a variety issue, believe it or not, makes no sense but then again it's milo.  Anyways they asked my opinions on a multitude of things and wanted input on anything I thought could be improved.  You really appreciate when the company wants their customers inputs on things the customer doesn't like, not just what the company thinks the customer needs.  The two of them even stayed till almost dark so we could make a 13 mile move just to try one more variety of milo that evening to verify we actually had a variety issue.

One more thing AGCO got right, that I wouldn't think ever happens, was the young man they hired for a new engineer actually came off a farm in NE ks. where him and his dad farm and yes they run a S series gleaner just like the one I have and that he will be helping to build. 

While AGCO spends 100's of millions of dollars on R&D on other machines the Gleaner rotor has had minimal money spent on a design that is some 40+ years old and still accounts for  over 70% of there combine sales.  That is a testament to Allis Chalmers engineering. 

exSW wrote: Someone was asking in another thread for combine suggestions. No one said anything about a rotary.R 50/52's are cheap,simple and relatively common. Why no love?

Not sure other than they have the short rotor and a little smaller feeder house.   I have a neighbor that has a R55 that they like.  They haven't had any issues with it.  Around here they just weren't that common mainly do to size of farms.  Farmers here went from L's to 30ft machines and this is probably the reason they are cheap.  The R55 is still built and sold today over in China.  They just rebadge it a Massey T5 I believe.  Talk about ruining a nice machine with red paint.

I believe here. A friend said he saw a few T5's on the Hesston lot a few years ago. 

I believe the ones made here a few years ago were T7 which were R76, the R52 or T5 is made in China at a Massey plant and no T7, guessing that size wasn't needed there.  There is a video somewhere on youtube that shows the plant that makes them in China, along with a smaller combine, tractors, and other equipment all branded massey.