Rich, it's been a couple years since I have had a lengthy discussion with ML, but I have talked to them at considerable lenght and what I am going to say it credible as far as I am concerned.

First, they had a few Lexion combines. Not too many. They were not adding any more and did not intend to replace them with like for various reasons. They should be getting to be among the older machines in their fleet, probably due to be sold off.

Second, as someone else tried to explain, the whole premise of the operation is to provide lower cost machines through greater utilization. They want their investment to harvest wheat from May through August, following the harvest north. Then they want it to come back and pick up fall harvest, moving around to stay working as many hours as possible before the season is over. The machine will cut many different crops and likely utilize at least four or five different types of heads, not to mention needing different sizes and row spacings in different areas. The total hours on the machine will be the same as the sum of the hours put on all the different heads it operates with. The head investment is not going to get spread around very much, because it requires so many different heads to get the jobs done.

They did, in the beginning, rent heads also. They found that because of the lower utilization, which didn't spread fixed costs over very many acres, plus the high maintenance costs associated with heads and the relative uneconomic nature of trying to insure heads in a way that was adequate for their lease model, that they could not provide a header at a cost which was competitive with other options. At the time I talked to them, they had a limited number of heads availible, but they were right upfront telling you you should explore your options because you could probably find a lower cost approach either by owning your own or by doing a short term rental with a dealer. They indicated then that they were providing heads for only a small percentage of the customers...I can't remember the percent now, but it was in the order of 30% or so if I remember right.

4wd combines was another issue they were trying to deal with, and I don't think they had a good answer yet at that time.

The fact of the matter is that if I were to use ML I would for all practical purposes have to maintain my own tires and tracks to use on it, because there was no way they were going to be inclinded to provide machines suitible for SE KS conditions in a wet harvest season. It would just not make sense for them to spend $50,000 on a set of tracks which are only going to get a few hundred hours per year at most, and not that in a lot of years. They would not be able to provide the tracks at a cost I would accept, for what it would cost I would just buy my own rather then spend the money and have to turn them back in after the season.