Krone XDisc 710 Now Fits John Deere, New Holland Foragers
Krone's XDisc 710 direct-cut header can now be used by John Deere and New Holland forage harvesters, as well as the Krone Big X it was originally designed for.
Its core business is grain and seed, particularly grass seed, followed by grain, brassica and clover seed, alongside processed vegetables and beef finishing. The 2025 harvest put the business under pressure, with repeated rain leaving only a few short harvesting windows.
After trialling the New Holland CR11 combine harvester alongside its current CR10.90 machines in a wet, stop‑start harvest, the business confirmed it will upgrade to a duo of the new CR11 model, next generation combines from 2026.
Managing director Aaron Chudleigh spent his time in the paddock personally trialling the CR11 in heavy, high‑value pickup crops to see how it performed when conditions were at their toughest. Across key crops, compared to the CR10.90 units, the CR11 delivered around 1.7 times the capacity in wheat, 1.9 times in clover and up to 2.2 times in grass seed, while maintaining a clean sample and low losses.
“The biggest gains for us have been in the pickup work,” Aaron said, “Around 60 to 65% of our harvest is lifting windrowed grass, brassica and other small seeds, so I was really focused on how the CR11 coped with those heavy, high‑value crops on large format pick-up fronts.
“With the CR11 we can pick up two windrow rows at our normal harvesting speed, and in grass seed it’s basically doing the work of two machines,” he said.
“In a wet season like this, one every extra minute counts. There were times when the CR11 could go out 30 to 60 minutes earlier in marginal conditions, pick up two rows and still do a tidy job, which was the difference between getting a paddock done before the next rain or not.”
Cochranes, the largest New Holland dealer in the South Island, worked alongside Fairfield
Farms to trial the CR11
in the region’s demanding small‑seed conditions. Group sales manager Barth Landy said, “We trialled the CR11 in some of the toughest small seed conditions, including new variety perennial ryegrass, to really test the machine, with early results showing it performing exceptionally well”.
“The scale of small seed production here in New Zealand is larger than almost anywhere else in the world, so these trials were some of the most demanding CR11 small seed tests done to date. They gave us real‑world data to prove how the machine performs in small seeds and to help validate its potential for large-scale growers across New Zealand, and indeed, globally.”
