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Claas Jaguar 1000 Series has seen its flagship 1200 set a new world record in forage harvesting.
The recently released Claas Jaguar 1000 Series has seen its flagship 1200 set a new official Guiness World Record in forage harvesting, harvesting 4096 tonnes of whole crop silage in 12 hours, alongside an efficiency record of just 0.49 litres of fuel consumption per tonne of silage harvested.
With the project designed to showcase the throughput capacity of the most powerful JAGUAR of all time, with a maximum output of 1110 hp, the event also confirmed a huge leap in performance, since a Jaguar 900 of 2001 set a previous benchmark of 1891 tonnes harvested in 12 hours.
Featuring around 30% larger dimensions than the previous Series, the 1000 offers a new pick-up with independent, variable drive and conveyor auger, new hydraulic precompression, widest crop flow with 910mm wide V-FLEX chopping cylinder, high-torque and efficient MAN 12-cylinder engine with Dynamic Power and Cemos Auto Performance driver’s assistance.
Taking place in early June, in the middle of the US tornado season, the event centred around extensive logistics that, besides the harvester, included a Disco 9700 RC triple mower, with auto swather mounted on a Axion 960 of 460hp, 30 articulated trucks and a Xerion 12.590 Trac with a 5.5m silage blade on the clamp.
Taking place near the small Texan town of Dalhart, on irrigated ground, and overseen by a Guiness Records official, the event started at 8.00am. Driven by US product manager Matt Jaynes, with the machine was set to 17mm chop length, with Cemos Auto Performance, Auto Fill and GPS Auto Pilot all engaged.
From the start, an impressive pace saw trucks filled in two minutes, 43 seconds, resulting in 266 truckloads carted in the 12-hour period.
During the day, nerves were tested by dark clouds on the horizon. This turned into stormy and windy conditions, but no rain over the 12 hours, that were only interrupted by a short refuelling stop and a few sharpening cycles, before an 8.00pm finish.
The performance and process data were continuously monitored and documented in Claas Connect, with the new Nutrimeter recording 59.4% measured moisture, via the ISOBUS-enabled NIR sensor, that in turn was confirmed with the 60.006% moisture measurement taken on the weighbridge.
In addition to moisture, dry matter and crude fibre content, the Nutrimeter was also able to determine the crude ash content and ingredients such as crude protein, starch (maize crop) and sugar.
“The world record illustrates that it’s not just horsepower that counts in a forage harvester, but an optimally coordinated overall concept from the front attachment to the precompression and chopping cylinder to the drive management and driver assistance systems,” says Dominik Grothe, CLAAS senior vice president self-propelled forage harvesters.
Twin rotor swathers have become the ‘go-to’ for forming swaths to feed hungry harvesters and balers, however, the design layout often means that crop located between the two rotors is not picked up, turned over or incorporated into the swath formed for subsequent harvesting.
Fifty Eight years ago, on the 16th of August 1968, August Claas, the founder of the harvesting company and father of Helmut Claas, personally presented a Claas Senator combine harvester to Scottish farmer John Steven.
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Following the €1.6 million investment in a prototype workshop in early 2025, Claas has invested an additional €3.3 million at its Metz-Woippy baler production plant to increase production capacity.
After its flagship 1200 model set a Guiness World Record in forage harvesting, mopping up 4096 tonnes of whole crop silage in 12 hours, Claas has picked up a brace of awards from the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineering (ASABE).
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