Case IH hay and harvest product manager, Geoff Rendell, said the loss of approaching 50 headers during the '08 winter crop harvest was felt up and down the nation’s east coast.

The prolonged drought and low contract harvester prices may have forced many contractors to exit the industry, he said.

Mr Rendell believes the length of time some contractors took to reach ripening crops, which often had been down-graded by the time the headers arrived, will cause farmers to re-think their combine harvester purchasing strategies.

And while contract harvest rates may have risen this year, Case IH believes many farmers are coming to realise they cannot rely on contractors to the extent they once did.

This could see a reduction in the estimated 600 to 800 headers that annually trundle across the Queensland NSW border at the height of the Australian harvest.

These comments are taking place against a backdrop of the "heavy bleed-off" of labour across a range of farming areas, according to Mr Rendell, who says feedback from the '08 season included the difficulty of finding skilled labour.

As a result, Case IH says its '09 headers, notably its six-model Axial-Flow 88 series, offer an increasing number of operating aids such as its Pro 600 yield monitoring and mapping technology.

And its 88 series headers also will now come into the country ready for AccuGuide - the company's auto-guidance system.

"For example, the latest AFS Pro auto guidance system will allow operators to set guidance paths from Google Earth Coordinates," Mr Rendell said.

"The machine does not even need to have been in the field when the guidance lines are set up, so header contractors can set guidance lines offsite, before they even get to the farm, and can run multiple combines on the same guidance pattern."