Engineers conjure up an Ideal combine harvester

High-performance machine from AGCO Massey Ferguson to be rolled out in series of displays

An all-new high performance harvester design is to hit UK harvest fields this summer as AGCO’s Massey Ferguson unit rolls out its new Ideal combine in a series of demonstrations.

The high-tech machine is said to result from one of the most comprehensive, complex and wide-ranging projects ever undertaken by AGCO.

During a six-year development programme, engineers took a fresh look at every aspect of a combine’s architecture based on analysis of interviews with 60 combine owners and operators in 12 countries, and more than 500 responses to a mass survey.

While priorities varied depending on the region and market segment, the main messages stayed the same – owners and operators wanted reliability, ease of repairs and ready parts availability, intuitive and convenient controls, harvesting efficiency and the ability of the machine to fit the customer’s operational profile.

The development team aimed to address their key concerns in areas such as fuel efficiency, harvesting performance, serviceability, ease-of-repair, grain quality, residue management, transport width, data management, hillside working and soil compaction.

The resulting three-model range is positioned at the top end of the performance bracket while boasting several market-leading features.

For example, at 647hp the rangetopping Ideal 9 has more power than any of the top models from Case IH, Claas and Deere, as well as a larger threshing area, bigger grain tank capacity and faster unloading rate.

Add in automated control, Ag Command telematics connectivity and easier mobility thanks to a ‘long and narrow’ configuration, a test and development programme that involved 45 prototypes, and it is understandable that AGCO believes it has a package that can compete with the best.

At the heart of the combine is a new 600mm diameter dual helix rotor design, which at 4.84m is longer than the rotors installed in other pure rotary or ‘hybrid’ cylinder-plus-rotor machines.

Just one of these rotors is used on the Ideal 7 while two are installed in the Ideal 8 and 9 harvesters, where they provide a total threshing area of 1.66 sq m, which is calculated to be 31% larger than the nearest competitor.

Increased control automation has also been the focus for latest-spec John Deere ‘S’ series rotary combines heading out in customers’ hands for the first time this harvest.

At the heart of the system is the Green Star 4600 display located on a new Command Arm seat-mounted console and featuring a swipe-action touch screen similar to a tablet computer.

Integrated Combine Adjustment (ICA) is standard and this offers up advice on ways of improving combining performance.

But it’s also available as an automatic version that monitors and adjusts the internal mechanisms based on information gathered from cameras in the clean grain and tailings elevators to look for cracked grains, foreign material and unthreshed grains.

New Claas Lexion 600 and 700 series combines heading into this year’s harvest will feature the colour touch-screen Cebis Mobile terminal for the first time.