New Holland bridge gap with hybrid harvester

The CH7.70 combines traditional a threshing drum with twin rotary separators, and it’s affordable and kinder to straw, writes Justin Roberts

The advent of the rotary combine in response to the need for ever more productive machines while keeping them a manageable size has, over the years, led to a division between the new high-capacity units and the traditional straw-walkerbased harvester.

More recently various attempts have been made to bridge that gap, and New Holland have launched a single new model which is designed to slot in between its high-end CR range and the lesser CX machines.

The CH7.70 is described as a hybrid which brings together the traditional threshing drum and the more modern twin rotary separators, which, up until now, have been considered sufficient in themselves to thresh and separate the grain from the straw.

Relegating the twin rotors to the less demanding task of separation might appear to be an admission that all was not well with the original concept.

However, New Holland emphasise the positive and claim that their latest machine offers a 25pc increase in throughput and 35pc reduction in cracked grains compared to other combines in this market segment.

That is a quantifiable metric, but you can’t be so precise about straw quality, often a criticism of rotarytype machines of any sort.

This has held up the adoption of such threshing methods in regions where the straw may be sold to livestock farmers.

New Holland are stressing the quality of both the grain sample and the straw delivered by what they have called ‘Crossover Harvesting’, a term that has led to the ‘CH’ classification of the range, although it presently comprises just the one model.

Including the two threshing methods in one unit brings a whole new level of versatility to harvesting, according to New Holland.

They claim that a minimal amount of adjustment is required between crop types.

The 600mm drum feeds the crop directly into the two rotors which have been designed especially for this application.

Aggressively Versatile:

New Holland’s new CH7.70 includes two threshing methods in one unit

The company points to the near 3 sq metre separation area provided by the 3.45m-long rotors which, it would seem, do not treat the already threshed crop as aggressively as would twin rotors alone.

Although flagged up as an in-between-sized combine, there is a natural tendency to compare the CH7.70 with its smaller stablemate, the CX6.90, as it represents the next step for operators who usually progress up the size ladder.

The engine is a 374hp version of the Fiat Powertrain Cursor 9, around 10pc more powerful than the CR6.90, and it comes with a 1,200hour warranty.

Daily maintenance includes just four greasing points, with a 600-hour service interval, and there are new cutter heads available up to 9.15m in width.

Although the idea of a hybrid harvester is not new, New Holland have come to the party with a machine that is more affordable to an Irish tillage farmer and is kinder to straw to boot.

New Holland are stressing the quality of both the grain sample and the straw delivered by what they have called ‘Crossover Harvesting’