FARGO, N.D. – When buying a big implement that pencils out at $1,000 per horsepower, it’s important to know that it’s the biggest bang for the buck.
Tim Hoggarth, a Class representative for North Dakota and Montana, says direct drive is the best way to know the most work is being extracted from each those costly horses.
He said more transmissions and power transfer mechanisms mean less power working for the operator.
This is especially true in forage harvesters because they handle heavy, wet, power-gobbling silage, he added. A quick glance at the spec sheets from any manufacturer always shows forage harvesters having way more power than their combine cousins, even though the combine is often a larger machine.
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“In our area of the northern Great Plains and on up into Canada, a good crop is about 20 tons material per acre,” Hoggarth said.
“The Jaguar 960 harvests 25 acres per hour. So that’s 500 tons per hour. You absolutely must have big horsepower to do that much work and handle that much product.”
Claas displayed its Jaguar 960 at this year’s Big Iron Show in Fargo. Powered by a 650 horsepower Mercedes V8, this is the biggest Jaguar that uses a single engine.
The next two models in the lineup are 12 cylinder harvesters, comprising twin Mercedes inline six cylinder diesels. The pair of engines total 760 h.p. in the 970 model. The 980 model is the largest, with the twin diesels totalling 860 h.p.
Hoggarth said the final price generally pencils out to about $1,000 per h.p., depending on which cutting head goes on the front.
“The base 960 we had at Fargo is pretty close to $400,000. That particular Orbis corn head is another $125,000. It handles corn silage, Sudan grass and Sorghum.”
He said the alfalfa head is a smaller unit, much like the pickup on a baler. For high moisture barley, producers often cut and windrow and then pick it up with the alfalfa hay head. Claas also has a special direct cut head for high moisture barley.
Hoggarth said Jaguar’s forage harvester is all about power.
“It’s not that we have to make more power. We just put more power to use. It’s all about power transfer,” he said.
“Direct drive is always more efficient at turning horsepower into work accomplished in the field. The motor sits sideways; transversely mounted. We take power off the end of the motor and transfer it directly to the cutter heads.
“There’s a big drive belt, basically from the crankshaft right to the harvesting mechanism. There’s no gearbox in between. No change in the direction of rotation back at the engine, so the power doesn’t turn any corners. And no parasitic drag.”
He said that the engine’s transverse mounting is critical because Claas engineers wanted the belt to turn in the same plane as the crankshaft. If the engine was to be mounted fore-aft, a gearbox would be needed to change the rotation 90 degrees.
In the twin-engined Jaguars, one dedicated diesel powers the harvest mechanisms while the other moves the implement.
Hoggarth said most of the buyers in his area are dairy and beef producers, with only a few custom operators.
“But most of them go out and do custom work to help take the sting out of the price tag. In other areas, nearly all buyers are custom operators.”
Neil Patterson of Hepson Equipment in Brandon, which serves as Jaguar’s Manitoba dealer, said the Manitoba market is different than Hoggarth’s.
“We’ve been selling mainly to the bigger dairy farmers and the bigger custom operators. Plus there are a small number of feedlot operators buying Jaguars,” he said.
“The most popular models around here are the Green Eye, the 491, 492 and 493. We haven’t sold any of the bigger 900s yet.”
Hoggarth said New Holland has introduced a new, high capacity forage harvester aimed at the Jaguar market. The new machine also has a belt drive system.
“It looks a lot like our Jaguars. I suppose we should be flattered, but we’re not,” Hoggarth said with a laugh.
For more information, contact Tim Hoggarth at 402-618-3169 or visit www.claas.com.
