Marketing departments love to see new output records set. Brochures, adverts, videos — the promotional opportunities are seemingly endless. Yet the catch is that most headline-making feats are achieved in unrealistic going. Last autumn Claas went to Lincolnshire to put that right…
ISeptember 1st, 2011. The wheat is standing ready for the knife at Haugh, Lincs; the terrain is undulating, the fields are anything but square and the longest straight run is 700m. On site to oversee proceedings are machinery consultant Bill Basford and from Guinness World Records, Jack Brockbank. They check the crop, finding three varieties with heights from 410mm to 540mm. The combine — a Lexion 770 Terra Trac with a 12m header — is ready to roll. Cutting height is set for 200mm and, at 9.46 in the morning the big Lexion moves off. For the next eight hours this 770 — top dog in Claas’s line-up — chops straw, often loading its 431kW/586PS engine to the maximum.
As the day warms, moisture content falls from 18% to around 14.5%. By 5.45 that afternoon the previous world record — 551t set by a New Holland CR 9090 in 2008 — is toast. In eight hours the Claas has delivered 675.84t into a busy fleet of trailers, topping 2008’s record by a startling 22.5%.
The job doesn’t pack up at tea time. After a quick stop the Lexion goes on; this time with its chopper disengaged as the farm wants the straw. After 12 hours the team takes a short break to clean filters and again refuel. Moisture content inches up as darkness falls, but telemetry shows work rate hovering at around 5ha/hr, even after midnight.
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