I wish I had a photo of our old Hesston 500 windrower. I spent a lot of time on that machine. When I was quite young, I rode along with my Dad as he cut hundreds of acres of alfalfa and oats on our farm and for neighbors. Then, from the time I was a teenager through college and into my own beginnings on the farm, it was our main swather.

ALL LINED UP: A line up of some of the new windrowers on the market today from haying demonstrations at Husker Harvest Days.

We cut bromegrass pastures, oats and alfalfa and in dry years, CRP grass with it. By today’s standards, the old 500 was tiny. Our unit had trim steering, which helped a young teenaged boy build up his arm muscles, and a 42-hp Wisconsin engine. The 500 was unique because it had a new hydraulic vari-drive speed control that was operated with a foot pedal, so you could change ground speed without changing engine speed. It was innovative for the day.

I’m not sure what year Hesston first released the 500, but I know that the company generally claims to have commercially produced the first self-propelled windrower. I have learned through a number of antique farm machinery sites that Versatile, Owatonna and Killberry may have produced swathers earlier than Hesston, but I don’t have the facts to back it up. I’m guessing our 500 was a 1965 model. Hesston windrowers like the 500 were very popular around our region because Hesse’s Inc., the local implement dealership, was also a Hesston dealer.

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I was reminded of the Hesston 500 this week when I read an AGCO newsrelease about the 100,000^th Hesston windrower rolling off the production line on March 29 in Hesston, Kansas. There will be more than a little fanfare surrounding that event. The company continues to honor Lyle Yost, who invented and introduced Hesston’s Model 100, the company’s first self-propelled windrower in 1955. It was touted at the time with greater versatility for harvesting hay and grain crops and brought about a new level of maneuverability, which was also a benefit of the 500.

By the way, that 100,000^th windrower at Hesston will be an AGCO WR9860 with a 4.9-liter engine and 195 hp. That machine will do 17.5 mph in the field and 24.5 mph on the road. I guess we’ve come a long way since that old 500.

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