- Versatile single-rotor threshing proofed efficiency in difficult, wet harvesting season across the continent
- AFS Harvest Command™ package on latest 250 series flagship machines demonstrates performance, grain quality benefits
- Increase in output helps users to make up for delays
The value of the latest developments in the Case IH Axial-Flow® combine range, including AFS Harvest Command™ automated technology for the flagship 250 series machines, has been underscored by their performance in one of the most difficult European harvests of recent years.
Intermittent and at times very heavy rainfall across much of Europe meant a stop-start harvest for combinable crop farmers, with many harvests lengthened by two-three weeks because of later crop maturity, high moisture levels and unpredictable weather. The problems were felt throughout the continent, with Germany, for example, experiencing its wettest summer in a decade. However, a number of Case IH Axial-Flow operators reported that with the Axial-Flow combine they were able to work despite these challenging conditions, while achieving high daily work-rates when cutting was possible, keeping harvest and following crop establishment on track.
The Case IH Axial-Flow threshing and separation system has proven its abilities in over four decades of work on farms worldwide, with a single moving component – the Axial-Flow rotor – used to thresh and then separate the grain from other material, with no separate drum and concave nor any interruption to crop flow. On the latest Axial-Flow 250 series combines, the system’s abilities have been further enhanced by new AFS Harvest Command technology.
Axial-Flow users who benefited from their combines’ capabilities during harvest 2021 included the Tupag Agrar farming business, based in Thuringia, mid-Germany. Here, under the guidance of Sören Reinbeck, the business’s managing director, and Jan Breitschuh, combine operator, an Axial-Flow 9250 AFS Harvest Command headed a team that harvested 3,800ha of combinable crops, providing the ability to handle the most difficult weather conditions whilst offering efficiency, reliability, performance and comfort.
“We had a challenging season, with the harvest lasting into September due the weather, which had made the threshing conditions very difficult,” says Mr Reinbeck.
“But even in such tough circumstances, the Axial-Flow 9250 gave us excellent grain quality and throughput, and that’s the bottom line for a profitable business.”
Based on feedback from the combine’s loss sensors, a grain quality camera and a series of sieve pressure sensors, AFS Harvest Command monitors key operating criteria ranging from ground speed and engine load through to feed-rate control and sieve settings. The unique sieve pressure sensors provide an accurate measure of sieve load, allowing the system to determine the difference between sieve overload and wind losses. The grain camera identifies cracked and broken kernels, plus material other than grain (MOG), and automatically adjusts settings to meet the operator’s desired set grain quality targets for crops ranging from wheat and barley to maize/corn, soybeans, canola/oilseed rape and rice.
