…and we are ready to roll!! After a long period of cold and rain, the weather has finally changed and the crops are getting ready to cut. When I arrived in Reno from my long journey from Germany nearly two weeks ago, I was really surprised about the snow storm, which welcomed me in the USA. The last two weeks I mostly spent in Reno, where the Krone headquarter for the western region is located. The office was opened almost one year ago. Beside the office and facilities for sales and technical trainings, Krone N.A. has built a big spare part storage to provide dealer and costumer in the west of the USA. During the time in Reno, my colleagues and me did the final preparation for the coming “Meet the BiG MAN”-Tour through the west of the USA and got the first choppers ready to go. One was sitting in Reno and we couldn’t send it over the mountains for over a week because the roads were closed due to the weather. On Tuesday, I made a trip to California together with my colleague Brent Raines, product group manager of the western region, and we understand why the roads were closed. Here are some impressions of the amount of snow in the Grand Sierras. I am wondering, how they could pile up the snow so high?!
But now back to what you might interest the most: The MEET THE BiG MAN TOUR 2011. Like Niklas did a road show with the JCB and the Krone BiG Pack, I want to show you the new generation of the Krone choppers: BiG X 700, BiG X 800 and BiG X 1100. The Big X 1100 has nearly 1100 hp and is the largest forage harvester on market. First let me introduce myself a bit. My Name is Benedikt Schäfers and I am working in the sales promotion department at the Krone headquarter in Spelle, Germany. Before I started working there, I studied agricultural economics in Göttingen, near to Hannover, which you might know from the Agritechnica. During my studies, I had the possibility to work on different farms in Europe (France, Ireland, England and Romania) and in Canada (Alberta and Manitoba). I always enjoyed the time abroad and I am really looking forward to this coming summer to get to know the American way of life and especially to show you the new Krone BiG X chopper in action.
So what is important, when you think about a forage harvester? High capacity, good chopping quality, low fuel consumption and operator comfort!! All this is combined in the new BiG X. The single engine from MAN with Common Rail injection leads to quiet running (Those, who have heard it, know what I am talking about), low fuel consumption, high efficiency and low maintenance. The BiG X 700 with a 16,1 liter V 8 engine has an engine output of 775 hp, the BiG X 850 and BiG X 1100 have a 24,2 liter V 12 engine with a maximum power of 850 hp and 1078 hp. Special feature of the BiG X 1100 is the Krone Power Management, which allows the operator to switch between different engine outputs. The new crop flow is called VariStream. Spring loaded back plates in the cutting cylinder and accelerator ensures blockage-free and smooth operation. The new cabinet is much easier to maintain. Six pre-compression rollers and a pre-compression force of 5,5 tones lead to highest chopping quality. With the new cab you have a very comfortable place to work. With best vision, more space, low noise and the new joystick you operate at high performance. During the tour, you can find out more. See for yourself and visit me at our Meet the BiG MAN Tour.
During the next six month, I will be travelling through the west of the USA to show you all these new features. We will have different choppers all over the country, because it’s impossible to move one chopper over thousands of miles on the road. Partner of the tour are MAN and Busatis from Austria. Busatis are producing the HD-parts for the choppers like knifes, shearbars and accelerator padles. My main stops for the tour you can see on the following picture. I am going to show a BiG X 700 and BiG X 1100. For Pick-Up work I will use our Easy Flow 3801, during corn season, I will show our new threefold corn header Easy Collect 753 with 10 rows and Easy Collect 903 with 903, depending on the chopper and the amount of crops. For my first round, I will start in the Central Valley in California, move over to Texas, go up to Idaho and then to Colorado. I will chop everything, what I get in front of my Pick-Up. The “corn-round” looks almost the same. I will make additional stops in Washington and Oregon.
Next week I will get my first bites in winter forage in California. For the whole month of April, I will be in the Central Valley. When you want to find out, where I am doing my demos, please call Pioneer Equipment in Turlock, Five Points or Bakersfield. Due to weather and crop progress, I can’t exactly tell, where I will chop.
So that should be it for my first post. Hope to see you on the tour. Any comments or questions? Please let me know.
Best regards,
Benedikt
