2010 BiG Pack Roadshow

Let me introduce myself. My name is Niklas Beindorf and I come from Spelle, Germany, where we produce all the KRONE hay and forage harvesting machines, to run a demonstration tour called the “Big Pack Road Show” in the western United States. I started at the beginning of April in the Imperial Valley, located in the southern part of California near the Mexican border, and will finish the tour at the end of October in Kansas. On my way I will go through eight states of your beautiful country - California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Utah, Colorado and Kansas. Our intention is to show you the Krone BiG Pack 1290 HDP in your field.

What is so special about this baler? Krone is the only big baler producer who offers a high density baler, which means it is able to put the weight of a 4x4 bale in a 3x4 package. What Krone did is take the technology from our 4x4 baler and insert that into a 3x4 baler. The heavy Flywheel (1100 lbs), the huge gearbox, a longer bale chamber – all that is necessary to make 25% heavier bales. But why is it so important for you to have heavy bales? Perhaps you think normal weight bales are good, the bale shape looks good, and perhaps they are also heavy. But let me explain the advantages of our HDP baler with the help of some examples:

 Imperial Valley: Hay export is the main business in this area. With normal balers you are not able to reach the weights you need to load a truck or container to its weight limit. So the normal process would be to carry the bales from the field to stationary press to recompress them. However, this step is very expensive. If the hay is baled with a KRONE BiG Pack 1290 HDP, you are able to make a 7 foot long alfalfa bale for export that weights 1550 to 1900 lbs (depending on the moisture). These bales are heavy enough to load the container directly in the field and meet the maximum weight limits. Once they are loaded they are able to take the container and directly ship it overseas.

 Arizona and California: Milk production is a staple in this part of the country and there is not enough local alfalfa to feed the large number of dairy cows. Therefore much of the alfalfa is trucked in. If a truck is loaded with regular bales, it is not possible to load it to its weight limit which increases the number of loads. If the alfalfa is baled using the KRONE BiG Pack 1290 HDP, a truck can be loaded to its weight limit, resulting in lower freight costs. The machine is also very smooth on the leaf of the alfalfa because of the specially designed plunger and the cam less pick up. Another very important fact is that the baler breaks the stems of the alfalfa better, resulting in increased forage quality and digestibly.

 Kansas: Straw production is the main focus in this region. Much of the straw is shipped to other parts of the US over long distances. Here you have the problem again that if the truck is not loaded to the maximum weight the shipping costs increase. Using the KRONE BiG Pack 1290 HDP will help producers lower their shipping cost by being able to load the truck to the maximum weight. Krone bales are heavy as bricks with the perfect bale shape making them easy to handle. 

 So I am the one who will be running all the demonstrations and who will visit your pastures if you are on my way across the western USA.  Each producer that we visit is invited to run the baler and make up to 80 bales in their field, and I promise you will not be disappointed. Krone is working together with JCB, who gave us the use of a JCB 8250 Fastrac for this Road Show. This tractor is 250 hp, which is a little big for the baler because it only requires a 180 hp tractor. However, this is the perfect tractor for our Road Show because it is easy to handle with its vario-gearbox and it can travel up to 42 mph.

You are invited to follow us on our Road Show by finding Krone on Twitter, Facebook or at my blog- http://roadshow2010en.blogspot.com.

See you and best regards!

Niklas