Illustration by Ryan Johnson
Q: Every harvest season, I see gigantic combines bringing in the crops. What’s it like to drive those monsters?
A: Who says anyone’s driving? Most modern combines rumble autonomously down corn and soybean rows guided by GPS satellite data, with farmers serving as backups to steer the rigs to and from the field, make tricky end-of-row turns, and unload. That’s about it. “You still have to pay attention, but you don’t have to focus quite as intently,” says Karen Jones, machinery executive editor at the trade publication Successful Farming. The typical combine comes with lots of bells and whistles, including top-of-the-line sound systems, refrigerators, air conditioning, and massage seats. These tricked-out field warriors can cost anywhere from $500,000 to north of $1 million. Cabs have room for the farmer’s kids and spouse. When you spend most of fall as wingman to a cob-plucking robot, human contact is nice.
