[This Week’s Farm Machinery] Daedong’s Domestically Made Soybean Combine ‘DSF85’ Returns After 5 Years… Loss and Breakage Rates Improved by 30%

As the supported area under the strategic crop direct payment system reached 148,000 ha (Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs) in 2025, the largest since the system was introduced in 2023, and direct payments also increased to 226.6 billion won, demand for harvesting machinery for field crops, including soybeans, is also moving in tandem. Amid growing calls from farms for high-precision harvesting performance that overcomes the technical limitations of existing harvesting equipment and is tailored to domestic agricultural sites, Daedong has released a new soybean combine.

Daedong(co-CEOs Kim Jun-sik·Won Yu-hyun) has newly launched the full-feed combine ‘DSF85’, which upgrades the core functions of the entire soybean harvesting process, from cutting to conveying, threshing, and sorting, and has begun a full-scale push into the market.

Discontinued after 2020 supply… returns after 5 years amid expansion of strategic crop direct payments
This is not Daedong’s first soybean combine launch. Daedong had already produced soybean combines and supplied them to the market in 2020. At the time, it entered a market that had been preoccupied by imported equipment. However, when the paddy field alternative-crop cultivation support program, which provided direct payments when crops other than rice were planted in paddies, ended after 2020, farm demand declined and supply was provisionally suspended.

Recently, however, the situation has changed rapidly as the government strengthened support for cultivating alternative crops, including soybeans, to address the oversupply of rice and raise the food self-sufficiency rate. As support for soybean cultivation expanded, Daedong immediately moved to respond and chose a direction that preserved the strengths of its existing model, which had already been verified in the field, while supplementing its weaknesses. Ko Gwang-ho, deputy general manager of Daedong’s System Development Team, explained the background to the development, saying “We improved the shortcomings of the existing product in a field-oriented way and have newly introduced it after 5 years”.

Securing versatility with crop-specific dedicated kits… harvesting barley, buckwheat, adlay millet, and oats
The voices from the field that Daedong focused on most during the new product development process were the ‘burden of high equipment prices’ and the ‘limitations of harvesting a single crop’.

Until now, Japanese combines, which have been evaluated as having excellent performance, have continued to draw comments that their prices are burdensome. In addition, as barley and other crops gained attention as alternative crops to rice, the need for multipurpose equipment rather than equipment dedicated to a single crop emerged.

Daedong found a breakthrough with a strategy of increasing the versatility of ‘DSF85’. The main body is designed primarily for soybean harvesting, but Daedong developed ‘crop-specific dedicated kits’ that can harvest various field crops such as barley, buckwheat, adlay millet, and oats, making them available for attachment. Farmers can purchase and attach the kits they need by season from Daedong dealerships, enabling them to harvest multiple crops with a single combine.

Deputy General Manager Ko Gwang-ho explained, “Farmers’ biggest concerns ultimately are reducing labor and the mechanization rate”, adding, “Because soybeans are the easiest crop to mechanize as a substitute for rice, many farms chose them, and we have now aligned with the trend of expanding portfolios beyond soybeans to other field crops that can be mechanized”. He added, “It is a product with price competitiveness.”

Loss rate and breakage rate improved by more than 30%… reel from 2 to 5 levels and threshing rpm lowered
The success or failure of soybean harvesting depends not only on yield but also on how many ‘intact, unbroken soybeans’ can be secured. The most important core of the newly released DSF85 is that the threshing·sorting structure has been completely overhauled.

Deputy General Manager Ko Gwang-ho said, “5 years ago, compared with our company’s existing model, we internally achieved the goal of improving harvest loss and breakage rates by more than 30% ”, explaining, “We focused on securing soybeans in an intact state”. He added that the scale of improvement may vary depending on conditions, saying “However, there are variations depending on the harvest timing and field environment”.

The blade position was optimized to prevent losses that occur during the process of conveying cut soybeans. In particular, the speed of the ‘reel’, which gathers soybeans according to crop condition and working environment, was subdivided from the existing 2 levels to 5 levels, reducing unnecessary bouncing and loss during conveying. Anti-scuff ridges were installed on the floor of the passage, and soil-removal screens were placed in the cutting and conveying sections to filter out soil and chaff before threshing. Instead of striking the crop roughly inside the threshing unit, the rotation speed of the threshing drum was lowered. This reduced the physical impact applied when separating soybeans from stems and pods, suppressing damage and breakage.

One of the key technologies newly introduced in this new model is the ‘Smart Selector’. It precisely implements inside the combine the principle of ‘winnowing’ from traditional agriculture, which used wind to separate grain from husks. First, the Smart Selector filters out large contaminants such as stems and leaves, and sorting quality was improved by adjusting the spacing of the ‘chaff(Chaff)’, which filters grain and foreign matter, in 5 subdivided levels. In addition, an auxiliary chaff that supports sorting operates together to further increase the purity of the grain finally collected.

1,570ℓ grain tank, reverse rotation, and leveling control… supporting nonstop harvesting
The new ‘DSF85’ is equipped with convenience features so that continuous work can be performed without stopping even on large farmland.

First, like the existing model, it is equipped with an extra-large grain tank with a capacity of 1570ℓ , eliminating the wasted time of having to stop work and move to an unloading site when the tank becomes full during harvesting. It is at a level where a typical standard-sized field can be harvested in a single pass without discharge work. In particular, the efficiency of this large-capacity tank becomes even greater when harvesting other multipurpose crops such as barley, whose grains have a large volume.

In addition, even if an emergency occurs during harvesting in which soybean stalks or vining weeds become entangled in the cutting unit and cause a blockage, the operator does not need to get off the machine directly. If the reverse-rotation function is activated while seated in the driver’s seat, the blocked crop is quickly discharged to the outside, enabling work to resume immediately. In addition, considering that field-crop cultivation areas often include slopes, Daedong has applied as standard a high-precision leveling control function that automatically adjusts the machine’s front-back and left-right level, supporting safe harvesting at a consistent depth even on sloped land.

Supply preparations completed for dealerships nationwide… immediate contracts and shipment
Daedong’s ‘DSF85’ has already entered full-scale production this year, completed final quality verification, and finished the stages of shipment and supply preparation for dealerships nationwide. It currently has a distribution network through which farms can receive the machine immediately upon contract.

Although detailed field verification data are difficult to disclose in full for business reasons, Daedong said it takes pride in the highest quality after internally passing all performance improvement standards. Deputy General Manager Ko Gwang-ho said, “We focused on developing a combine that can maintain the harvest quality of the soybeans farmers have worked hard to grow while offering price competitiveness, and that can meet demands such as applying it to various crops in line with policy changes”, emphasizing, “We will continue to enhance the completeness of the product by reflecting the needs of agricultural work sites”. Daedong plans to additionally develop crop-specific kits in the future to expand the range of supported crops.