CLAAS celebrates 20 years of four-rotor swathers

Forage harvesting giant, CLAAS, is celebrating the 20^th anniversary of the introduction of its industry-leading LINER four-rotor swathers.

CLAAS Harvest Centre Product Manager, Luke Wheeler, says the series was designed to eliminate the bottleneck in pasture forage harvesting. “Brief harvesting windows require top-performance harvesting equipment,” he says. “At that stage, CLAAS was manufacturing a completely-integrated range of high performance mowers, conditioners, rakes, balers, forage wagons and forage harvesters. “About the only thing missing from the line-up was a high performance rake that could match the enormous capacity of its JAGUAR forage harvesters.”

With a working width of up to 12.5 m, LINER 3000 doubled the productivity of two-rotor swathers in the years following its introduction in 1999, so increasing the capacity of the entire harvesting chain. “Farmers and contractors reported 30 percent higher productivity in the forage harvesting chain, thanks to faster chopping rates and less downtime,” Luke says. “Since then, it is no exaggeration to say that the four-rotor LINER series has become synomous with productivity, forage quality, user convenience and reliability.”

Today’s LINER 4000 and 3600 models carry on that proud tradition. With maximum working widths from 9.9 to 15.5 m and swathing widths from 1.2 to 2.6 m, these machines adapt easily to different forage materials and all commonly used pick-ups.

The silage tines specially developed by CLAAS, in combination with accurate rotor movement control, ensure clean and complete crop pick-up at all times, while protecting the ground beneath.

All LINER models feature hermetically-sealed, maintenance-free rotor domes that  continuously lubricate cam rollers in an oil bath. The integrated tine arms are fitted with the patented PROFIX tine arm attachment system, which allows tine arms to be replaced in the field with minimal effort. “The pre-defined bending points are located outside the rotor dome, thereby protecting the internal components and minimising maintenance,” Luke says. "The large diameter and gradual rise of the cast iron cam track ensures smooth-running tine arms and clean raking.  The smooth movement of the cam rollers also significantly boosts the components’ service life.”

Despite their impressive operating widths, both models fold down to compact dimensions for safe road transport at speeds of up to 50 km/h without the operator having to leave the cab or remove any tine arms.

The LINER 4000 and 3600 are controlled using the OPERATOR, COMMUNICATOR II, S10 or any ISOBUS-compatible terminal. “Alternatively, the innovative tablet-based CLAAS EASY On Board app is the last word in user-friendly operation,” Luke says. “This app allows the operator to to match the machine settings exactly to ground and working conditions. These settings can be stored in the memory and even automated. The working width, swathing width and rotor height are all infinitely variable. Likewise, the headland clearance height can be adjusted to allow the machine to pass over even the highest forage crop volumes without affecting the swath shape.”