We travel to Bavaria to take a closer look at some of the features on Fendt’s first self-propelled forager, the Katana 65. A small number of machines will be busy chopping with German contractors this season prior to a gradual roll-out to other markets over the next couple of years.
IBack in 2006, AGCO’s CEO, Martin Richenhagen, announced that the US-based machinery giant would be entering the self-propelled forager business, largely as a result of the burgeoning interest in maize for biofuels.
Since then we have enjoyed several sneak peeks at what was being developed at Fendt HQ in Marktoberdorf, and then, of course, the 650hp Katana 65 was finally unwrapped to the wider public at Agritechnica in November 2011. However, there’s still no point in rushing down to the local dealers with the cheque book just yet, as it will be another two years before we see the Katana munching through crops in the UK or Ireland.
“We plan to introduce the Katana here on the UK market during the season of 2014,” comments Fendt’s Richard Shelton. “We see the self-propelled forager as a major component of our strategic plans to grow the Fendt brand in the UK and Ireland, and we are already focusing on dealer capabilities, as well as technical and parts solutions, to match the requirements of our proposed customer base. We believe this to be a reserved but sensible approach, considering that we’ll be entering this market segment from a standing start.”
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