State Of The Art Gehl Forage Harvesters

Another classic from the Gehl archives! Looks like quite a bit of John Deere power on the Gehl equipment to keep the Green fans happy & just a touch of the other colors to keep the rest occupied. It's great to see the JD R in the beginning on the FH80 with the power unit. That had to make quite the sound out in the field.
Enjoy!!

[@JH-qi7fz]

Still run a 7200 green chopper, and use a 1540 blower. These are great machines!

[@farmingfishingfamilyontari2814]

I think we had a 1060 and a 99 blower. I was young back then. Corn silage was and is still my favourite time of year.

[@MorganOtt-ne1qj]

970 and 980 were great boxes, especially feeding Super 99 or 1540 blowers! Much smoother than the green boxes.

[@karlherzog3979]

We had a 760 gehl chopper when I was a kid. That was the first chopper I ever ran. It was a great machine.

[@ronzezulka6646]

Hey Ikon,,,gotta love the just unwrapped look of demonstrator equipment.

[@dehavenfamilyfarm]

Really enjoy these videos!

[@jamesbuck3818]

BEST Damn Horse Power grabbing choppers EVER MADE!

[@jdtractorman7445]

My uncles and grandfather had a Gehl 1260 chopper. I ran it quite a few times, pretty nice machine.

[@ryanredfarmerMN]

We've had tons of gehl equipment, and still use our chopper and mix-all.

[@jerrydowell1660]

i remeber working for a guy that had a gehl chooper and we have to fix the shear pin when we got into heavy stuff thats amazing no more shear pins

[@billbennetch9144]

It was a shame they did stop making equipment, plant in Lebanon pa was 15 minutes from us,they had a good line except the 1540-1580 blowers,bought a new one years ago,it was the bottleneck during filling just didn't have the capacity . Haylage would plug small tunnels repeatedly, very frustrating .

[@ronzezulka6646]

Thanks Ikon,,,Gehl built some amazing equipment. And it was red. Just sayin,,

[@jrm3053]

Great video, what year was this video made? Keep em coming!

[@jamesbuck3818]

Give me a GEHL ANYDAY😅

[@tpfromcentralpa1692]

I was thinking about this during chores, probably showed Deere the most as they were probably their biggest competition in the chopper market? I always guessed Gehl outstold NH choppers by quite a bit, anyone have any numbers? I would be curious to know. NH sold alot of stuff around me, didn't seem like choppers were one of the big movers though.

[@RJ1999x]

The New Holland choppers were the No.1 chopper for years. Gehl made a nice unit, but the 1200-1280 never could run with a 900 New Holland

[@tpfromcentralpa1692]

@@RJ1999x I would like to see numbers, everyone always says this but I find it really ironic that as close to New Holland as I am, and everyone, and I mean everyone having about everything New Holland built..........except silage wagons, blowers, and choppers, which were either Gehl or Deere.

[@RJ1999x]

@@tpfromcentralpa1692 You do understand that because a company is located in your area, there might not be a strong dealer. Here in Wisconsin Fox choppers were the only chopper seen, until Gehl modernized their units, then they owned the market, with a few John Deere floating, the New Holland dealers here sucked, so they were minor players, until about the late 80's, then New Holland came in big. New Holland has always dominated the hay market

[@tpfromcentralpa1692]

@@RJ1999x Oh no, we had great NH dealers at that time, they sold tons of haybines, rakes, squarebalers, and spreaders...............but it seemed silage equipment wasn't so hot, I often wondered how the two companies compared in that market, because those dealers would have moved silage equipment and it just didn't happen. I would guess more Deere Choppers here than NH.

[@RJ1999x]

@@tpfromcentralpa1692 no, new Holland easily outsold the Deere, especially with the wall of steel choppers. Our local John Deere dealer was a New Holland dealer, they'd sell 10 new Holland choppers to 1 Deere. The die hard green guys is the only reason they stocked a John Deere. The salesman wouldn't even bring the Deere out on demo because the New Holland was so much better

[@jamesbuck3818]

LOOK how TALL that corn is!... Must be N.E...

[@tpfromcentralpa1692]

Confused on where the 860 was? It come later?

[@ikonseesmrno7300]

Fairly certain the 860 was one of the last models made. Still a few around here.

[@tpfromcentralpa1692]

@@ikonseesmrno7300 I thought that was the 865 that was the last small one in the line? Is my memory failing me again?

[@jamesbarbour8400]

This Gehl equipment sure looks like it's high quality - anyone know when Gehl stopped making this kind of machinery and why ?

[@ryanredfarmerMN]

Lack of demand. Less smaller dairy producers putting up feed.

[@haweater1555]

Gehl was only a minor player in the pull-type harvester market compared to Deere or New Holland. Drastically shrinking number of small dairies with the remaining farms opting for massive self-propelled machines from custom operators. More efficient to blow directly into trucks which can quickly dump into horizontal bunk silos. A great number of tower silos you see on the farmland horizon are empty and haven't been used in years.

[@jamesbarbour8400]

@@haweater1555 that's pretty much covered everything I wanted to know, so thank you. The quality of of their equipment looks pretty good just the same

[@haweater1555]

@@jamesbarbour8400 There was market room for only one domestic, independent maker of balers and hay equipment (no choppers) and that's Vermeer.

[@jamesbarbour8400]

@@haweater1555 seems a bit of an odd thing to say in terms of market share, given how physically vast the contigious US is. Must surely have been enough potential market space to go around for all the players ?

[@donaldfuller5041]

Ikon how do you pronounce Gehl? It's pronounced like gale here in Vermont

[@ikonseesmrno7300]

Yep sir, it is!

[@andylieffring2461]

Love these videos… really wish they still made them

[@tpfromcentralpa1692]

@@ikonseesmrno7300 I have an idiot neighbor who thinks its Gee-all😑

[@Ihfarmer23]

Anyone know the year looks too be the 80s..

[@kennethmccubbin608]

Bought a Gehl round hay baler. Paid good money. Then they decided they would get out of ag to concentrate on construction. Lost a ton of money. Never trust these guys.

[@RJ1999x]

How did you lose a ton of money? The baler quit working?