New Holland wins Gold and Silver at the Agritechnica Innovation Awards

The leading innovation award scheme in the agricultural machinery industry received 251 entries of which 218 were approved for the list of exhibition innovations. The DLG Innovation Jury has awarded one innovation with the gold and 17 innovations with the silver medal.

This year, the global agricultural machinery company New Holland, part of CNH, won the Gold medal and two Silver medals.

The Gold medal was awarded to the overall CR twin axial rotor combine harvester concept. New Holland also won Silver medals for the battery-electric T4 Electric Power tractor and the T7.270 Methane Power (LNG).

Two other CNH brands also won Silver medals: a modular hybrid concept for medium and large standard tractors by STEYR  Tractoren; and a Forward Looking Feedrate Radar for Axial-Flow Combine, which applies radar sensors to measure the condition, height and density of the crop, thereby improve harvesting efficiency.

With the new CR twin axial rotor combine harvester, New Holland is advancing into a new performance dimension in twin axial rotor combine harvesters using the longitudinal flow principle.

The core element of the new CR combine harvester is the drive technology with an engine mounted longitudinally according to the rotors’ inclination angle. There are no drives on either side of the chassis between the chassis and the running gear, as a result of which the width of the chassis has increased considerably. This resulting space helps increase the installed technical output of the combine harvester.

The Gold award-winning combine from New Holland offers advanced automation features, promising to increase throughput, grain retention, grain protection, and fuel efficiency over the current flagship CR combine range.

New Holland also won a Silver medal for the T7.270 LNG - the first methane gas tractor with LNG (liquefied natural gas) tanks. The volumetric energy density offered by LNG is significantly better than CNG (compressed natural gas), which makes it suitable for large tractors and self-propelled harvesting machines.

Using innovative double-wall technology, vacuum-insulated tanks adapt to tractor spatial conditions, enabling a 200kg tank capacity. The system is powered by a battery that can be charged externally or via the integrated IC generator, which uses boil-off gas for autonomous operation.

Under their system, collected livestock manure is transferred to a covered slurry lagoon or tank, where the emitted fugitive methane is captured, along with other polluting gasses. The fugitive methane is then purified and converted into liquefied methane using a processing unit. New Holland now offers LNG gas engine options with the T7.270 Methane Power, catering to the agricultural sector’s rigorous demands. Additionally, users can opt for bio-LNG, using their biogas as a CO2-neutral vehicle fuel.

New Holland’s other Silver innovation is the battery-electric T4 Electric Power tractor, which presents interesting autonomy and safety functions. The camera systems mounted on the cab roof and at the front in the bonnet enable a 360° all-round view of the tractor that can be transferred to the cab terminal, the detection of rear-mounted implements for simplified coupling and automatic PTO shut-off, should anyone move too close to the propeller shaft.

Claas KGaA also won two Silver medals, one of which was the multi-dimensional three-point power lift regulation, which automatically enables tractors to level attachments for more efficient work. Claas has further developed the 3-point power lift by integrating the upper link into its control system.

Claas’s second Silver medal was awarded to the 3A software - Advanced Automation and Autonomy - a collaboration with implement manufacturer Amazone and agricultural robot OEM AgXeed on a system that can help autonomous and traditional farming equipment communicate.

Other Silver award winners were: telescopic front loader (Wilhelm Stoll); GrindStar stubble tillage system (Saphir); Eco-Duo Vario precision fertilization system (Zunhammer); Rotating Ridge Former (All-In-One); CurveControl for centrifugal spreaders (Amazonen-Werke); ChangeSep interchangeable separator (Grimme Landmaschinenfabrik); Potato windrower with SmartFold (Shaktiman Grimme Root Crop);  grinding device without manual readjustment for forage harvesters (Maschinenfabrik Bernard Krone); iQblue tool monitoring system (Lemken); and Radicle Agronomics soil sampling system (Precision Planting).

The modern combine harvester is a machine designed to harvest a variety of grain crops. The name derives from its combining four separate harvesting operations - reaping, threshing, gathering, and winnowing - to a single process. Combine harvesters are one of the most economically important labour-saving inventions, significantly reducing the fraction of the population engaged in agriculture.