Corn Kernel Harvester Is Speeding up to Expand to the South of China

Emerging of any product starts from the area where people can afford this product. The self-propelled corn machine (corn ear harvester) is emerging from Heilongjiang and expanding southwards to the Central Plains.

In recent years, the hot market of the corn harvester has gradually changed from northeast China to Huang-Huai-Hai region; all factories have competed in the Central Plains centering on the three-line machine and there has been a trend of comprehensively speeding up to expand southwards. But, the direct harvest of the corn kernels is in great demand in the market and the market demands have the trend of expanding from the northeast China to the Central Plains and south of China. At present, all corn machine manufacturers keep up with the market demands and are engaged in the direct harvest field of the corn kernels one after another, which is as said in Historical Records ? Stories of Han Xin: Qin Dynasty lost its dominant position, and all forces jointly fight for the dominate position.

Fight hard in northeast China

It is no doubt that as the traditional market of the direct harvest of the corn kernels, the northeast China region has the hot market. At present, the main brands are the large-scaled machines represented by John Deere S6 60, Case 140 series, Agco and CLAAS etc., old products including John Deere middle and small-sized C230 (original 3518), C110 (original 3316) and W80 (original 1048) and new products such as R230 etc.

What can represent vigorous market demand of the direct harvest of the corn kernels in the northeast China is that some brilliant tractor drivers (professional tractor drivers and service organizations) purchase second-hand machines such as 1075 directly, then make these second-hand machines changed into axial-flow structure by the axial parts in factories of Hegang or Suibin etc. so as to hook the corn machine header to carry out operation.

But, we should also see that the direct harvest of corn kernels in the land-reclaimable area has been regarded as the historical tradition. The abovementioned situation that the skilled tractor drivers remodel machine type 1075 etc. for harvesting the corn kernels basically belongs to areas outside the agricultural reclamation area, that is, the demand for direct harvest of the corn kernels is expanding outside and to the south—Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning; with the trend of southwardly expansion, the market demand and the purchasing willingness weaken gradually.

Of course, the market demands for direct harvest of corn kernels are rigid, vigorous and a trend, which is correct. There is also a problem needing to be noticed: with the rapid development of the agricultural reclamation microcosmic organization, the original large combine harvester purchased independently by the farm is giving full play to its economic performance and selling service (working to make money) to areas outside the agricultural reclamation area, which extrudes and occupies demands for direct harvest of corn kernels outside the agricultural reclamation area to some degree and also effectively solidifies users’ using habit and quality requirements, namely large feed quantity, high reliability on the direct harvest machine types of corn kernels to some degree, thus resulting in the result of being prejudiced by first impression.

The domestic enterprises such as Lovol, Zoomlion, Dongfeng, Dima, Yongmeng, Changfa Jialian, Shifeng, Runyuan and Boyo etc. also follow the trend and launch the direct harvest machine type for corn kernels. For example, some new companies such as Shandong Yafeng Agricultural Machinery Co., Ltd. also launch relevant products, thus, it may be said that the market is very boisterous.

It can be said that areas outside the agricultural reclamation area in northeast China, the first general war of direct harvest market of the corn kernels has begun.

Cultivation in Central Plains

In the agricultural machinery industry, the Huang-Huai-Hai market is a hotly contested spot. In terms of the wheat and corn harvest machinery, sales volume of 40 thousand wheat harvesters and sales volume of 50 thousand corn harvesters in the Huang-Huai-Hai market respectively account for about 80% and about 70% in national sales volume of wheat harvesters and sales volume of corn harvesters; especially in the corn harvester market, the increment of the whole Huang-Huai-Hai market accounts for about 85% of that of the whole market and the Huang-Huai-Hai corn harvester market may further expand in future.

For the agricultural machinery enterprises, the enterprises that control the Huang-Huai-Hai market will control the whole market.

In recent years, the demands for direct harvest of the corn kernels is rapidly growing in Huang-Huai-Hai area, which benefits from the rapid popularization of the early-maturing corn variety and the drying plants and the promotion of the land intensive operation mode. Moreover, with the rapid decrease of the cross-area machinery harvest of the wheat harvester, the machinery purchasers have the new commercial mode requirements for the return on investment of the wheat harvester.

In that way, the corn machine header plus the horizontal axis-flow wheat harvester become the main configuration in the initial stage of the direct harvest of the corn kernels in the Huang-Huai-Hai area. However, in 2014, the Kubota PRO 100 products showed in Wuhan National Agricultural Machinery Exhibition appeared in the new structure, namely, the single-axial-flow structure. It seems that these products were the wheat harvester products from the appearance, but they would be used in the corn kernel harvest, which made all people participating in the Exhibition shocked.

At present, domestic enterprises following the trend include Lovol, World and Haking etc., in which, products of Zoomlion and Zhongshou have larger outline structure.

The author thinks that adopting the traditional wheat harvester plus corn machine header in the Huang-Huai-Hai area is the commonsense problem for putting a patch and putting forth effort to research & develop the single longitudinal axial flow machine for harvesting wheat and corn is the knowledge problem for the subversive innovation way.

We hold the view that this kind of innovation has following advantages: firstly, regional direct harvest of kernel belongs to the newly-emerging demand and does not have the mature operation system. Secondly, all enterprises are at the same starting line basically and there are not the mature and leading enterprises. In the meantime, the Huang-Huai-Hai area is the main market of the traditional wheat harvesters in China; terminal users generally have higher cognition for domestic agricultural machinery; service guarantee capability of all brands is better and is not inferior to that of the overseas-funded brands. Thirdly, some large enterprises such as John Deere and Case etc. do not have the Huang-Huai-Hai market-oriented products, thus they cannot carry out control temporarily. Fourthly, the demand for direct harvest of kernels is forming at present. There is sufficient time for learning by doing and changing by learning. Learning by doing is a concept from the classical economic growth model and is the important content of the technical endogenous growth model. The reason why technology is regarded as the endogenous variable is that the most important source of the technical variation is obtained from the observation practice and not developed from the specialized research.

Of course, there is also a hypothetical disadvantage, which is whether the machinery cannot meet rapidly increasing planting scale demand after customization with the accelerated development of the land intensive management in the Huang-Huai-Hai area; after a period of time, the land scale will just meet the operation demand of the middle-sized machinery products, but, Case 4088 type machinery will occupy the main trend. Certainly, this trend may not be as fast as above imagination and it is only for reference.

We shall say that, as the subversive innovation, the single longitudinal axial flow small-sized wheel type machine can fight against large enterprises such as John Deere, Case etc. directly in the Huang-Huai-Hai area.

Being expanded to south of China

With the deep promotion of the national food security strategy in recent years, the corn planting areas in Hunan and Hubei Provinces have increased gradually and the demand for machinery harvest has increased rapidly. In addition, the rapid development has been acquired in the aspect of grain drying equipment in recent years. Above resultant force jointly promotes the direct harvest of the corn kernels to become the first choice of local peasants, which also conforms to many years’ rice harvest operation habit of this area.

At present, in terms of the problem related to make the crawler-type rice machinery changed or trial manufactured into the direct rice kernel harvester, many products are the longitudinal axis flow products. Moreover, this kind of improvement is divided into two kinds: firstly, install the series parts, such as divider etc. on the original reel header so as to be able to carry out the line division and bar picking. The advantage of this kind of improvement is that it can carry out the harvest not as per the line, thus can meet the nonstandard corn planting mode (especially in south of China). But for this kind of improvement, the feeding impurities are more, the separating power consumption is larger and the content of impurities is higher. Secondly, reinstall the corn machine header, that is, pick the bar firstly and then carry out feeding, which is similar to the “semi-feeding” for paddy basically. For this mode, the separating power consumption is not large and the impurities removal is relatively thorough. But the corn machine header must carry out operation as per the line, thus this mode cannot meet the complex and unordered corn planting mode.

We have to say that due to lack of knowledge and professional capability related to the corn harvest (whether the corn ear harvest or the corn kernels harvest), ordinary rice machine manufacturers are able to try this kind of subversive innovation, but the strict reliability test shall be needed if they want to carry out the volume production.

Of course, we shall see that perfection, large scale, hydraulic pressure application and crawler-type running etc are the general advantages of this kind of enterprises. The extensive strategy researcher in the agricultural machinery industry shall be appealed to pay attention to the “single axial flow + corn machine header” products in the south of China. The reason is that this kind of product is just similar to ants on the technology and market equilibrium balance, which plays a small role in the whole strategy of the agricultural machinery industry, but is the real strategic role. Thus, it can be said that “a small change may result in large influence.” In 2015, as one of the pioneers remanufacturing the crawler-type rice machine” into the corn kernel machine, the Jiajiale header of Wuqiao, Hebei Province got a first and it has completed operation test of the crawler-type machines (Kubota, World and Xingguang etc.) plus headers in Hunan, Hubei and Anhui.

What conceal behind the corn are grain safety and energy safety, which are very important and cannot be despised. Mencius said that although you have wisdom, please follow the trend; although you have the hoe, please waiting for the farming time.” Rather than refer to it as following the trend and time, it would be better for referring to as carrying out transformation following the trend”: the market demand for the direct harvest of the corn kernels is increasing rapidly, thus the industry shall be appealed to speed up research, fight hard in northeast China, carry up cultivation in Central Plains, actively grasp the market evolution opportunity, overcome various difficulties and achieve goals.