CLAAS Sets Harvesting Record

The new CLAAS JAGUAR 1200 went wheat harvesting outside Dalhart, TX during the summer.  The goal was to determine what the 1,110-horspower machine could accomplish in demanding conditions over a full day, and the result was a Guinness world record.  They finished with 4,515 tons of wheatlage in 12 hours, shattering the previous world record.  Matt Jaynes, forage harvest product manager for CLAAS, said it was a long 12-hour day.

“That was actually pretty easy," Jaynes was quick to point out.  "That was the easiest 12 hours I think I've ever had with the cab being so much quieter than the old cabs, the ride, the new cab suspension, the foot pegs, all the automation of the new machine, because we have cam pilots doing it on the wind row. You have the ground speed control with Seamless Off Performance, and then with autofill filling the truck, you know, you just push some buttons and drive for a mile or two around those big circles and turn around and come back. So, it was actually really easy compared to farming at home. The crop was actually pretty dry, because it was June 2 in West Texas, moisture was roughly 60% and we did over 266 truckloads.”

Jaynes talked about what the world record means for dairy operations and customer harvesters.

"With the world record, we really wanted to show what the true capacity of the machine was at, and you can see with this capacity, we're over two minutes and 17 seconds filling these huge semis," Jaynes said.  "What it shows us is we can go to less machines in the field, or we can get that field harvested sooner.  So, like some of these bigger dairies, at the end the crops are getting dry, as a bigger machine, we can get that crop harvested, so you're going to have a better nutritional value.  Or for a custom guy, it means he can go and do more acres in that season and extend it out.  But also, by having less machines in the field, the trucks leave the field more consistently and then go to the pile more consistently, so you can get a better pack because you have got more consistency, versus trucks leaving at the same time.”

Jaynes said they came up with the world record idea as a way to show how tough the JAGUAR 1200 is.

“Wheatlage is a really, really tough crop to harvest. It’s hard on the machine, it doesn't flow right, so we really wanted to show the toughness of this new 1000 series, and truly not even using a university study or whatever, but using Guinness World Records, so a really official place to mark this accomplishment of what a machine can do over 12 hours," he said.  "It's about a marathon race. It's not about what one truckload you can chop, but it's all about what we could do in 12 hours, and really coming up with a realistic idea of what other customers could accomplish out there as well.”

The world record attempt showed how much more a farmer can do with this machine during harvest.

“Yep, so we started at eight o'clock in the morning, and then we finished at 8pm, and throughout that 12-hour interval, with the Jag 1200, which is 1,110 horsepower," Jaynes pointed out.  "With our new 15-foot a head, the PU 4500, we recorded over 4,515 tons in that time, which was a huge accomplishment. We really broke the record by around one o'clock in the afternoon. So, it was a pretty easy record to break with this new big machine."

For more information about the record-setting JAGUAR 1200, visit Claas' Website.

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