Three Claas innovations were recently recognized by the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineering (ASABE) with AE50 Awards. The announcement from the ASABE came early this year, with the official award ceremony taking place this coming February at the ASABE Agricultural Equipment Technology Conference in Louisville, KY USA.
The AE50 Awards represent the 50 most innovative new products and product innovations in North America that have significant impact on agricultural, food and biological systems. Of the numerous submissions in 2024, three Claas submissions were recognized among the top 50.
“We are excited to have three of our agricultural innovations be recognized as voted on by the ASABE,” explained Eric Raby, Senior Vice President Claas Region Americas. “Our engineers are constantly working to refine our technologies, making our equipment more productive, efficient, and sustainable. This year, our harvesting equipment has been the focus, starting with the most recent addition to the Lexion combine lineup and ending with two very innovative enhancements to our Jaguar forage harvesters.”
1 Lexion 8900 Terra Trac
Introduced for the sales region North America in summer 2024 at the Ag in Motion farm show in Saskatoon, Canada, the top model in the Lexion lineup offers the most available horsepower in their largest combine range, delivering 790 max horsepower (SAE) from a 16.2l MAN engine with Dynamic Power, an increase of 90 hp over the Lexion 8800 model.
The Lexion 8900 Terra Trac class-10+ combine is particularly well suited for the large-scale small grain operations common in western Canada and other key growing regions in the US.
Threshing and separation is handled through the field-proven APS Synflow Hybrid system, featuring an accelerated pre-separation and threshing system that threshes the grain before the crop reaches twin rotors that gently finish the separation process. The threshing and separation speeds are controlled independently, giving the machine the ability to adapt quickly to harvest conditions without compromising grain quality or throughput. Coupled with the Cemos Automatic combine automation system, the Lexion 8900 Terra Trac makes autonomous and automatic real-time in-field adjustments as field conditions change with more precision and speed than a seasoned operator.
The Lexion 8900 is exclusively offered with the suspended Terra Trac undercarriage, for a smooth ride, traction, minimal compaction, and header stability for the biggest farming operations.
2 Jaguar earlage adapter for maize pickers
Claas designed the earlage adapter to seamlessly integrate a combine-style multi-coupler to the harvester to utilize Auto Contour and Auto Pilot functionalities when harvesting corn-cob-mix with the Jaguar, using maize pickers instead of Orbis headers. It features:
- Integrated hydraulic 4° side-to-side lateral contour for equal stubble height in hilly conditions.
- Integrated communication from header auto pilot wands to the self-propelled forage harvester.
- Integrated hydraulic deck plate adjustment controls from in the cab.
- Extra-large, heavy-duty gear boxes for greater durability and longevity.
- Wide feeding paddle to transfer crop efficiently from header to feed rolls.
- The drum can float up enabling higher throughput and better feeding, especially in high yield crop.
- 80HD chain to enhance durability and longevity.
The adapter helps increase capacity and provide greater wear resistance for longer-term productivity.
3 Jaguar V-Flex chopping cylinder
The V-Flex chopping cylinder features a three-bolt knife design, 10-degree knife angles and 21-percent more wear protection coating for a longer service life. While the knife drum body is always the same, the use of corresponding segment rings enables a knife configuration of 20, 24, 28 or 36 knives. New is the offer of half section knives for a doubling of the cutting length, the universal V-Flex can provide a wide and flexible range of cutting lengths from 3.5 – 53mm. In addition, the new design lowers cab noise by 4dBA for greater comfort.
“The Claas Jaguar has been on the market for more than 50 years and now, with these new components, Claas continues to offer high-tech advancements, providing our owners maximum productivity and flexibility,” said Tyler Roucka, marketing manager for Self-Propelled Forage Harvesters with Claas of America. “We’re looking forward to rolling out these expanded features for operators in early 2025 across North America.”
