It's dry in Texas...

Hi followers, 

this time I can give you only a short update. After a very interesting week in Memphis, I am back in Texas since friday. Yesterday I prepared the choppers for the coming demos in the Southern and Northern Panhandle. Beside the 1100, we want to show the BiG X 700 with the Easy Collect 753. A lot of customers around here have to chop at different places at the same time and like to play the "chess game".


Because of the heat and drought, there won't be much to chop this year. In some areas it hasn't rained for more than a year. High temperatures over 100 degrees and winds up to 35 miles an hour just dries out the corn. The best irrigation can't keep up with that. The yield of the corn is expected to be between only 8 to 17 ton/ac. There will be a big problem to feed the cattle. Right now, they are already trading hay for over 340 USD per ton. 

On the way to the dealer, I made some pictures of the landscape. Where you see the fence, you should see some cows, too. But what to eat? The big role of the pivots shows the last picture. For more pictures, just have a look at Google Earth at "Hereford,TX" or "Dumas,TX".

More about the corn in Texas next week. I will keep you up to date. 

Regards, 

The BiG MAN

Corn and tomatoes...

Hi Followers,

sorry, that it took some longer to keep you up to date. I had a lot of stuff going on the last days. The demonstrations are starting slow here in California. The cool and wet spring delayed the crop, so that I could run only one demo with the BiG X 850 and our Easy Collect 753. It was very nice and tall corn. Unless it was a little bit green, the yield was about 32 Ton/ac. Massive Corn!

The customer was impressed about the performance of the 850 hp-Krone chopper. I was running against the biggest Deere and was going a little bit faster than he did. But: I had two more rows to chop!

On the way home, I passed a tomato field, where they were harvesting. Time to stop and take some pictures. The tomato harvester is working like a potato harvester. A knife is cutting the tomato plant of the ground and sieves are transporting it. Optical sensors sorting out the green tomato, the leaves and the rest of the plant are sucked out with big turbines. The tomatoes are overloaded “on the go.” Tractors are transporting the trailers to the dirt road, where they get picked up by trucks and get transported to the tomato factory, where they make sauce, juice or dried tomatoes. 

Another highlight of last week was the visit of Yosemite National Park. A very nice landscape and it’s for sure worth to visit the park sometime. Here are some impressions for you..

This week, there won’t be any chopping. We are heading to the headquarter in Memphis for a meeting. On Friday, I am flying straight to Texas to get some corn chopped for the feed lots in the panhandle of Texas.

More about that in a few days. So please check back later in the week.

Regards from California

Benedikt

Back in the USA...

Hi followers,

Time is really running. I am already back in the USA for over a week now. At the moment I am at our Krone dealer in Turlock and get the BiG X 700 and the BiG X 1100 ready for the coming corn season. Last week I have spent in Bakersfield and ran several demos with our BiG X 850 with 850 hp and our 10-row header EasyCollect 753. The customers were impressed. They really liked the easy clean-up after work is done: “That was the fastest chopper clean up I have ever done before!”

The dairy men are asking for long chop and well conditioned kernels. That means corn flour! Thanks to our KP with 30 % speed differential, we can run with a wider gap at the same processing quality. More throughput is possible! Especially at this corn here in California. Because of the cold and wet spring, the corn is very uneven this year. But still, in some field we had corn growing higher that the cab and reaching up to 35 ton per acre. I have never chopped corn like this before…

End of the week I should run more demos. I will keep you up to date

Regards from California, 

Benedikt

Hello again...

Hi followers, 

it has been a long time since you have heard something from me. The last weeks I have been in the factory in Spelle. Although there is AGRITECHNICA this fall, I have not many news to tell about. A lot to organize and prepare...

Two weeks ago I have been to the famous "Grassland-Evening" in south of Germany. We have showed different Krone machines in action. Beside Krone, the dealer is selling MF-tractors. With over 600 people in the field, many discussions about Krone machinery, cold drinks and BBQ it has been a very succesful demonstration...

What's going on next? In a few days we will officially start the "Got corn?" phase of the "Meet the BiG MAN-Tour 2011". My flight is booked already. On Sunday evening I WILL BE BACK in the USA to chop lots of corn. We will start in California. I will give you pictures about that as soon as possible. Check back later...

Regards from "The BiG MAN"

Benedikt

Live from Spelle

Hi followers, 

hello to everybody from Spelle in Germany. This week I am back in the sales promotion department and help my collegues with some projects for the actual season. The biggest project for this year is the "Agritechnica" in Hannover. This is the world's biggest agricutural farm machinery show in the world, which will be from the 13th to the 19th of November. Yesterday I have been in the factory to show you the production line of the BiG X. Maybe one of those choppers is yours already?!

 

Next week I will be part of one of the world famous "Krone Grassland Evening". During those evenings we show all interested customers the Krone product line from gras mowers to harvest machinery in action and explain the machines in detail. More about that you can read here next week! So please check back later...

Regards from Germany

Benedikt

 

From Idaho to Reno and back to Germany

Hi followers, 

the first round of the “Meet the BiG MAN-Tour” is officially finished. All the hay, wheatlage and triticale in the western US is chopped and we can get the machines ready for corn. Right now I am back in Germany already. First maybe something about my last days in the US. 

The weather in Idaho was finally good for chopping so I was very busy the last days. I could run some more very successful demonstrations in alfalfa. Beside the performance, the customers really liked the blowing of the BiG X compared to their choppers. Especially when the hay has the right moisture, alfalfa can get very sticky. Here are some impressions about the demos from last week. Like everywhere, the interest in the chopper is very big…

Last Wednesday I packed my stuff and went back to Reno, where the headquarter for the western US is located and where we are going to park the trailer for the next weeks. It’s amazing how quick the landscape can change, when the water is missing. The last picture shows a dried out lake. 

In Reno I got the trailer ready to go for corn, get it washed  and had some time for some calculating. Here are some facts of my first “hay-round”:

From the 4^th of April till the 15^th of June I made 52 demonstrations for customers from 7 different states of the US. I had over 100 drivers in the seat of the new BiG X. 

In total I chopped about 190 hours with all the choppers. I was chopping oats, wheat, triticale, grass and alfalfa. The best performance with the BiG X 1100 was  420 US Tons/h in Triticale. I could chop 8,6 Tons per gallon of fuel.

At the end of my tour I had 10.900 miles on the counter. About the fuel milage of the truck I better don’t talk.

So what’s the plan for the next weeks? I will have a few days off and will be back in the german headquarter in Spelle next week. But I won’t stay long. Depending on the weather and crop progress I will fly back to the US in the middle of July. Destination: Arizona for corn.

For the next weeks some more events with the BiG X and other Krone Equipment are planned. I will keep you up to date about that. So please check back later…

All the best from Germany

Benedikt