GRAIN harvesters are becoming an increasingly complex piece of machinery, but Agco harvester product manager Shane Jardine said farmers were attracted to the Massey Ferguson range of harvesters because of their mix of simplicity and innovation.
“There’s no superfluous parts there, we are trying to keep things simple – after all the less parts there are, the less things can go wrong, and farmers have said they have been impressed by the reliability of the machines,” Mr Jardine said.
He said the 9505 series of harvesters were well suited to Australian conditions.
“They have definitely been built with durability in mind, as well as efficiency.
“For instance we’ve replaced the gearboxes with a simple two-belt drive to better fit with the pitch of the rotor, which we have found has created some real benefits in terms of improving fuel consumption and capacity.”
Another major issue in the Australian grain harvester sector at present is that of header fires.
The increased acreage planted to pulses has also seen a marked increase in the number of harvesters catching fire, a problem largely attributed to flammable pulse dust getting stuck on hot engine parts within the harvester.
Mr Jardine this has been accounted for in the design of the MF harvesters.
The cooling system provides unrestricted air flow through the air conditioning, hydraulic systems and inter-coolers, while radiators are arranged in a V-shape so outside air can pass through directly.
The system also automatically reverses every 15 minutes, minimizing the need to brush off to stop any potential flammable material gathering.
But Mr Jardine said the MF were not focusing simply on sound mechanical design.
From a tech point of view, he said Agco’s Fuse technology matched up in-paddock guidance operations with simple downloads of information to the office computer.