Editor’s Note: With this instalment, Country Guide machinery editor Scott Garvey begins a new chapter for MachineryGuide with his industry-leading reporting on machinery innovations that can make a difference for you, both in the field and on the balance sheet. This month, Scott goes deep into combine design with this exploration of the 2015 launches by AGCO and New Holland.
Elevation the key for these NH combines
Combine designers are doing more than just tinkering, as New Holland is showing with the particular attention it has paid this year to small grains growers, introducing new conventional and rotary machines designed specifically for that market.
In June, NH used Canada’s Farm Progress Show in Regina for the North American introduction of its completely new, two-model range of conventionals, the CX8 Series.
This line includes Class 7 and 8 models. The brand believes the larger CX8.90 will appeal strongly to small grains growers in Western Canada who also operate mixed farming operations and are willing to trade a little capacity in order to leave straw in good condition for baling.
“It (a conventional combine) is a little gentler on the straw but not quite as efficient in terms of capacity as a rotary combine,” says Nigel MacKenzie, New Holland’s marketing manager for combines and headers.
The CX8 models use the brand’s Opti-Clean cleaning shoe system, which was originally introduced on its large rotary. The company claims it offers a 20 per cent cleaning improvement over previous designs, because of the longer sieve stroke and steeper throwing angle, keeping material airborne for longer to enhance cleaning. To minimize the risk of blowing kernels out the back, the Opti-Fan automatically adjusts its speed to compensate for inclines.
For grain growers who like the idea of a combine tailored to their crops but don’t want the capacity drop associated with conventional models, NH also introduced a new rotary, the CR8.90 Elevation.
Of course NH already builds a Class 8 rotary at its Grand Island, Nebraska, plant. So what’s different with this one?
“The elevation is the clue,” says MacKenzie. “The CR8.90 Elevation is a small-grain-focused machine. It has exactly the same cleaning shoe as in the 10.90. The Opti-Clean cleaning shoe, it’s optimized for small grains, that technology we’re bringing down into the Class 8 segment to offer alongside our Grand Island machines.”
AGCO gives S8 Gleaner combines faster cleaning
When AGCO used Louisville’s National Farm Machinery Show in February to introduce its updated S8 Gleaner combine line, it was able to take along some extra bragging rights. Just days before the show, the work that the company’s engineers did to improve performance of these machines won the brand a prized ASABE 50 engineering award.
ASABE (The American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers) selects up to 50 new engineering designs annually for recognition with its ASABE 50 awards.
AGCO’s award was for its redesign of the perforated cascade pan at the front of the cleaning shoe, which is included in all three models in the Class 6 through 8 range. The redesigned pan is slanted at a six-degree angle, and the cleaning shoe has an additional 992 square inches of pneumatic cleaning area, bringing the Gleaners’ total cleaning area to 8,721 square inches.
It may not sound like a big increase, but the company claims this provides 10 per cent more cleaning capacity in tough conditions because it allows high-moisture crops to fall through sooner after coming through the accelerator rolls. This means the crop hits the sieve and clean-grain cross auger much faster.
“That gives us the capability to avoid the bridging that normally occurs in high-moisture crops (in all combine brands),” said Kevin Bien, Gleaner marketing manager, during an interview at the show. “You get so much buildup, it wants to walk itself right out the back of the combine because it can’t get through the chaffer and sieve area and into the cross auger.”
As well, in the redesigned units, the forced air duct was moved forward, redirecting airflow.
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“For the very first time, in 2015, Gleaner is totally pneumatic on our cleaning shoe,” Bien said. “That means we don’t have any area of our shoe that isn’t functional as far as giving us more capacity and more cleaning capability. This means a lot in high-moisture corn and high-density crops, because it gives us the capability to get more air to the crop. This cleaning shoe right now is about as large as some Class 9 cleaning shoes on the market with some competitors out there.”
AGCO claims this cleaning shoe design also reduces losses during side-hill operation.
“Cleaning is everything to a combine,” said Bien. “We’re really trying to figure out how we can give greater capacity to combines without adding weight to the machine and sacrificing some of the things that are most important to farmers… reduced compaction and increased fuel economy, and, more importantly, efficiency of the overall machine.”
