Rain, Rain, and More Rain

The rain just cannot hold off long enough for us to run some demos!  We were up in New Hamburg, ON last week, but the rain made it impossible to work the machines.  To still make the best of our week in Canada, we visited some large farms to see what their equipment needs were.  First, we visited  a custom harvester who is looking for a reliable self propelled forage harvester that stays in the field for the whole season.  He explained that he cannot stop in the middle of the season to fix wear parts.  Also, we saw one of the best farms in western Ontario.  They make it on the front page of farm magazines on a regular basis.  They are interested to see a BiG M 400 because they want to be able to cut faster to get the crop out of the field quicker, since they have so much rain there during the harvest season.  If they ran a BiG M 400 they would be able to replace their two windrowers with one BiG M and free up one of the two operators.  They also want to see the BiG X in action. They like the way the BiG X is built heavy, how it has six pre-compression rollers, the durable kernel processor, and the way the Krone EasyCollect corn head works.  These customers were very excited about the Krone machines and requested a demo with Stratford Farm Equipment when the rain finally quits. We also went and visited a customer who recently bought a BiG X 500 to do custom work with. (He also has a Krone triple mower.)  He likes the heavy built machine, the easy maintenance, the cam-less EasyFlow hay head, and the central lubrication system.  He is looking forward to corn season so he can see it work with the EasyCollect corn head.

This week we are back in Vermont since we had to skip that stop earlier in the demo schedule due to rain.  We demoed a BiG X 650 with the EasyFlow 3801 hay head.  We had a group of customers come to one farm to demo the machine.  The windrows that we chopped where really heavy with water, due to the rain. The BiG X picked them up perfectly and did not get plugged once and the cut quality was excellent.  We had one person at the demo that operated the machine in corn last year and he came out to see the heavy built, cam-less EasyFlow hay head work.  They all liked the speed adjustment for the head because “there is no need to have the head run faster than necessary,” they explained.  Many of the customers that came out to see the BiG X in the field got in the operator’s seat.  They all liked the power of the machine.  It has enough power and torque to go through the uneven windrows without plugging up or slowing down too much.  They all were pretty impressed that we did not leave bigger footprints with our machine.  The tractors with dual wheels where causing more damage to the field than the BiG X.  You could barely tell where the BiG X was in the field due to the big tires on it. That was a huge plus for our machines.

         Here are some pictures from the latest demos:

There are more demos to come next week so make sure to check back for my next blog post!

-Matrin-

New York with the BiG X and BiG M

The BiG Performance Demos have officially started!  So far, the weather has made performing the demos a bit of a challenge.  About every week since the middle of May there has been rain in the forecast.  However, we have been able to get out there and show the machines between rain showers.

                The first demo was in Oakfield, NY.  The customer was already familiar with Krone since they had run a BiG M II in the past and are currently running a BiG M 400.  They are now interested in finding a self propelled forage harvester that is fuel efficient.  We took a BiG X 650 to their farm to show them how the BiG X could benefit their operation.  They were impressed by the BiG X because of how heavy the machine is built and how reliable it is.  Also, they were very pleased by the quality and consistency of chop.  

For the next demo we moved to a town just outside Watertown, NY to a customer who was looking for a quicker and more efficient way to cut his hay.  Currently, the customer is using two windrowers, but he wants a way to cut with less fuel in fewer hours.  The BiG M 400 was brought in for this demo.  The BiG M 400 can cut up to 40 acres per hour and replace up to 2 windrowers, not to mention the labor savings.  The BiG M only uses .47 gallons/acre and is 65% more fuel efficient when compared to a conventional windrower.  A feature that this customer really liked was the standard SafeCut hubs.  SafeCut hubs provide ultimate cutterbar protection. The system centers on a roll pin that connects each mower disc to the drive shaft and that shears off if the disc hits an obstacle, protecting all elements in the cutterbar driveline.  If the cutterbar does hit an obstacle, simply replace the sheared roll pin and you are back in the cab working again.  The BiG M also comes standard with the Krone HD cutterbar.  The HD cutterbar is a heavy built cutterbar that has an increased lifespan.  The customer was impressed with the quality of the cutterbar because it would work great in the rocky conditions of New York.

The latest demo was yesterday in Salem, NY where we demoed a BiG X 650.  The customer really liked the BiG X because it is extremely efficient and has low fuel consumption.   They also wanted to see the BiG M 400 so we are going back to show them the BiG M at work on their farm.  They want to be able to cut faster and still have a high quality of cut.  As we have already seen here, there is a lot of rain this time of the year in New York.  Therefore, farmers need to be able to cut and chop fast enough to get the crop up before it gets rained on.  The BiG M is the right machine to get the job done!

We will demo the BiG M 400 close to Saratoga Springs, NY today and the BiG X 650 hopefully on Saturday. The customer we are doing a demo for today already has a BiG X V8 and two trailed EasyCut 6210 mowers. Next week the plan is to move up to New Hamburg, Canada and do some demos up there.  I’ll let you know what goes on up there next week!

-Martin-