AMAZONE: an agricultural machinery tradition since the 18th century

A remarkable entry in the family chronicle of the Amazone company states the following: The roots of agricultural machinery production go back to the 18th century, where the first winnower, a historic forerunner to modern agricultural machinery, was built back then. 

In 1903, Heinrich Dreyer, the founder of Amazonen-Werke, wrote in his chronicle in the German ‘Kurrentschrift’ handwriting style common at the time:

"In addition to farming, my father was a carpenter and a wheelwright and also made a few winnowers every year, which were very popular. His father, even his grandfather, had already made these winnowers, and according to the story, my great-grandfather delivered the first winnower to the city of Osnabrück at the end of the 18th century."
 

Winnower was the common name given to a grain cleaning machine which was used for mechanically cleaning grain after harvest. Impurities such as chaff, weed seeds, dust, small stones or broken grains were separated from the harvested crop in a multi-stage process with the cleaning mainly being carried out by a combination of sieves and a blower fan. The winnower was an important step towards improving the storage life and quality of the grain before being processed or sold. 

This means that the Dreyer family, with this craftsman business - a wheelwright's workshop - can look back on a tradition of almost 250 years in the development and manufacture of agricultural equipment. This makes the Dreyers the oldest family in the industry to be manufacturing agricultural machinery.

Heinrich Dreyer took over the wheelwright's workshop from his forebears and founded Amazonen-Werke in 1883. Since then, Amazonen-Werke has been independently owned by the Dreyer family in its entirety and will continue to remain independent. Today, the company is run by Christian Dreyer and Dr Justus Dreyer as the fourth generation but the passion for innovation and agriculture runs through the generations and emphasises the company's deep foundation in agricultural machinery.