World harvesting records are falling faster than barley at the cutter bar of a Class 8 combine.
Earlier this year in England, a New Holland 9090 Elevation combine knocked off 451.2 tonnes of wheat in eight hours, peaking at 78 tonnes per hour.
Not to be outdone, another British farmer, Keith Challen of Lincolnshire, set out to beat that Guinness record with his farm’s 517 horsepower Claas Lexion 580. The record was staged by farmland operator Farmeco.
The big Lexion, running on tracks, put 532 tonnes of grain into the bin in an eight hour shift. The tracks were necessary to accommodate one of the United Kingdom’s wettest ever harvest seasons.
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The Lexion used a 35-foot straight cut header and chopped and spread the massive load of straw and chaff.
Challen said in an e-mail that the crop tested tough, at 16.2 percent moisture, potentially slowing the machine from what might have been a higher capacity run.
Guinness officials monitor a combine’s performance in establishing a record. They set standards for the quality of grain in the tank and require that the machines operate at industry acceptable loss levels and leave a set amount of stubble.
The previous eight-hour record was broken after six hours and 45 minutes.
The Claas’s hourly capacity peaked below that of the New Holland, at 70 tonnes per hour.
Challen said he heard about the New Holland record earlier in the year and felt his machine was capable of beating it.
