PENDLETON – Jerry Terjeson began his wheat harvest northwest of Helix July 20 with a leased combine, the first available through Pendleton Grain Growers.

“I’ve got it for 100 hours, so I’ll have it for about 10 days,” Terjeson said.

Leasing the John Deere 9650 sped Terjeson’s harvest and saved him money. The combine cuts a 30-foot swath.

“It’s economically not even in the ballpark for me to own a new machine,” he said, noting that he leased the combine for just this year’s harvest.

“It more than doubles my capacity from my two old machines,” Terjeson said. He owns two Allis-Chalmers combines with 22-foot headers.

“The one big machine will at least cut as much, if not more, than my two machines do together,” he said.

Most machinery leases are for three years, according to Al Gosiak, PGG president and chief executive officer. He said the cooperative arranged with MachineryLink Inc. of Kansas City, Mo., is to have the combine available for lease.

Ordinarily, he said, MachineryLink leases combines and other equipment directly to large operators, farmers who need the equipment for more than 200 hours.

“This is the first time that MachineryLink has partnered up with a cooperative to try to service these smaller producers,” Gosiak said. “We’re hopeful that we can help farmers in our area. It’s cheaper to lease them than to own them.”

Producers who need a combine for 100 to 200 hours a year can lease the MachineryLink unit for $115 per threshing hour, Gosiak said, adding that the leased combine can cut 8 to 10 acres per hour.

The purchase price for a new high-tech combine can approach $250,000, he added.

PGG was considering an equipment-leasing program when it learned about MachineryLink, Gosiak said.

“These guys come with a ready-made blueprint,” he said, adding that it’s a good deal for the farmers with smaller acreages.

“There’s no maintenance, or any of that kind of stuff,” Gosiak said. “It’s all taken care of, and they get a new combine.”

Rob Cresswell, a Pendleton native and MachineryLink regional sales manager based in Portland, is pleased he made a deal to bring a combine to Pendleton.

“PGG is really kind of the leader – to step up and say that’s the right thing to do, let’s give it a try,” he said.

Cresswell said the combine operating at Terjeson’s has been busy since May and could be on the job until late November.

“There’s probably a dozen crops that we’re cutting with these machines,” he said, explaining how they move around the country to follow harvests.

MachineryLink first leases its combines for harvesting grass seed in Eastern Oregon and Eastern Washington, or harvesting wheat in Texas, in late spring. Then they move here to thresh wheat, then to Southern Oregon to cut wheat and barley in August. They move to Nebraska and Iowa in September for the corn and soybean harvest.

“This year we actually have a combine cutting wheat in Washington that will go to Colusa, Calif., Sept. 1 to cut rice,” Cresswell said. “Right now, we have combines operating in 24 of the 50 states.”

Thirty MachineryLink combines are operating in Oregon and Washington, he added, noting that machinery- and labor-sharing among farmers is nothing new.

“Farmers have been sharing assets ever since there have been farmers,” he said. “This is just another stab at it.”