769.36 hectares. That’s the area cultivated with the Bednar Swifterdisc XE 18400 MEGA cultivator and a John Deere 9RX 640 tractor during a 24-hours record attempt (23 hours and 36 minutes of net operating time) in Romania. The tractor-cultivator combination covered a substantial extra 125.36 hectares, compared to the 2007 record.
This 24 hours record was achieved during an event organized by Bednar in cooperation with the Romanian Bednar and John Deere distributor, IPSO Agricultură. The event took place in mid-July, near the town of Slatina in the south part of Romania. Olt Piess Slatina, a farming business, provided the facilities for the attempt to break the record. Romania was chosen thanks to the extensive fields. To show the real use and potential of the combination, the record took place in six different fields where wheat, winter rapeseed and peas had been harvested recently. The largest field covered an area of 161.36 hectares.
Field conditions and machine settings
The large surfaces of the fields and the combination of a large width and high working speed, enabled the set to achieve great performance. The average was 32.6 hectares per hour and the fuel consumption was 3.1 litres per hectare during the net time of 23 hours and 36 minutes. During that time, the set travelled a distance of 450.7 kilometers and the total fuel consumption reached the value of 2,355.6 liters. The working depth set on the disc cultivator was 7 centimeters. Downtime required for essential maintenance and refueling was only 24 minutes. The drivers swapped during work, for example, when the machine was turning at headland.
Large working width
Bednar has specialized in the production of large working width machines from the very beginning. The first such a machine was in 2003: the wide span Swifter SM seedbed cultivator. “We can see the increasing interest for such machines, which led us to introduce the Swifterdisc XE_MEGA series in 2021. It currently comprises of three models with a working width from 14.4 to 18.4 meters. I am very pleased and proud of what we managed to accomplish with our machine during the 24-hour operation. It does not only confirm the machine quality that resisted such a high load, but above all, the high productivity and effectiveness it enables us to achieve,” says Ing. David Ryčl, marketing director of Bednar.
For the record attempt, the cultivator was equipped with specially shaped aggressive discs with a diameter of 560 × 5 mm and the rear V-RING packer with a diameter of 630 mm, equipped with scrapers. As a standard, the machine has a hydraulic working depth regulation with comfortable adjustments using hydraulic clips. The machine turned fast at headlands thanks to the ability to lift the disc working section. It turns using the rear packers, the front support wheels and the transport axle. During work, the first axle is lifted to achieve a higher down pressure on the disc section.
