Lunch with Mr and Mrs Claas

IT’S not every day you get to have lunch with the man whose name is on the side of your combine harvester, but for one group of Australian farmers, that’s exactly what happened during a recent tour of the CLAAS factory in Germany.

The group had just finished a finished a tour of the massive complex when they were advised that some special guests – Helmut and Erika Claas – would be joining them for lunch.

Helmut Claas, an esteemed agricultural engineer and innovator in his own right, has helped guide the family-owned business to become one of the world’s largest manufacturers of agricultural engineering equipment.

Today, CLAAS boasts annual sales of more than €3.8 billion, 11000 employees and 14 manufacturing sites.This year’s CLAAS Harvest Centre European Farming Innovation Study Tour was led by LEXION Product Manager, Andrew Legge, and Landpower Regional Sales Support Manager, Paul Birbeck.

The 12-day itinerary included visits to UK’s leading field days, a research facility, a number of farms and the massive CLAAS factory at Harsewinkel. The 40-hectare site hosts the manufacturing plants for LEXION combine harvesters, JAGUAR forage harvesters and XERION advanced technology tractors.

During the tour, South Australian farmers, Jeff and Julie Ayles of “Willam Plain”, Kadina, had the thrill of seeing their new LEXION 760 TERRA TRAC roll down the assembly line.

“We were standing beside a machine that was three-quarters built when Andrew Legge checked the serial number and said, ‘You’re not going to believe this, but this is your machine’,” Jeff says.

“Our son, Craig, made the decision to purchase the LEXION and Julie and I had the honour of going to Germany to see it being made.” After the factory tour, the group visited CLAAS Technoparc, a 2500 square metre exhibition hall, museum and catering centre that attracts more than 30,000 visitors each year.

To everyone’s surprise, Helmut and Erika Claas, who still live in their family home within the Harsewinkel complex, dropped in and had lunch with the visitors. Helmut took particular delight in meeting third-generation CLAAS owners, Reuben, Peter and Chris Radford of Moriarty, Tasmania.

In 1966, Rueben Radford purchased the first CLAAS SF self-propelled harvester with bulk bin sold in Tasmania. The machine is still in good working condition.

His son, Peter, now runs six CLAAS LEXION 760 TERRA TRAC harvesters as part of a large-scale contract harvesting business.

Helmut, who a played key role in the development of the HYBRID threshing and separation technology found in LEXION combine harvesters, was particularly interested in seeing a photograph of a 18.2 metre (61’) draper front designed and engineered by the Radfords.

Other highlights of the European Farm Innovation tour included attendance at Cereals 2015, the UK’s leading field days for the cropping sector.

More than 25,000 farmers and 500 exhibitors attend the two-day event in Lincolnshire each year. Hosted on a working farm, it includes more than 64 ha of trial plots, machinery demonstrations and displays.

“There’s nothing quite like it in Australia – this is a genuine, trade-only event with 100% focus on cropping,” Andrew Legge says. “Of course it was completely different to here in Australia but I think everyone found it interesting to learn about different farming systems.

“The Western Australians were particularly interested in the mouldboard ploughs and ripping technology to rejuvenate their non-wetting and compacted soils.”

Next stop was a visit to a demonstration farm conducted by Agrii, which provides agronomic services and consulting services to more than 20,000 farmers in the UK.

“Agrii reputedly spends more than $2 million in research and development each year, which is an incredible amount for a privately-owned, service-based organisation,” Andrew says.

“They conduct something like 250 replicated trials on 28 demonstration farms throughout the UK each year. They are doing some really interesting work with cover crops as a means of managing herbicide resistance.”

The group also visited a number of farms in both England and Germany. “We met some very innovative and progressive farmers who are facing many of the same problems as we do in Australia,” he says.

“Farm sizes are increasing, input costs are increasing and they’re looking for new ways to improve their productivity and efficiency, just like us.”