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[IAhaymakr]

We just got home from Germany, after a tour of the Krone factory and a few stops around the country. Very impressive company and great people who seem to recognize both successes and failures in an effort to improve products for thier customers. We had the opportunity to visit directly with them about concerns on our present machines and about changes we wanted to see on machines in the future.

[NDVA HAYMAN]

Please tell us more!

[grouchy]

I would like to hear more also. I have an older Krone mower and there are several new units around me as well. Most everyone likes their equipment. I wonder if that is because they listen to the people who actually use the equipment when they designed it. What a concept!
Grouchy

[IAhaymakr]

Fire away with questions!!

[RCF]

Did you attend the Krone dinner in Orlando? What Krone equipment do you have and what concerns did you share with them?

[IAhaymakr]

Yes, I was at the dinner in orlando. I have a mower, tedder, rake, and Big Pak baler. Honestly, I don't have any major concerns with my equipment. I would like to see the Big M mower made more adaptable to the needs of dry hay producers. It has amazing capacity to cut, but it's a little weak in swath formation and for me raking solutions are still not where I want them to be. The company is very receptive to new ideas however, and recognizes that there is huge potential to make machines for western hay growers.

[RCF]

Yea we where their too we are actually the ones that won one of the drawings. We run the krone triple mowers and for our operation they work real well had a few little hiccups but the people from Krone really helped us out. I totally agree that they listen and help where they can we had trouble with our merger belts and they actually sent one of the engineers down here and he helped us out. We have had some issues with our krone baler but I think they are getting resolved. What kind of raking solutions are you looking for?

[IAhaymakr]

Congrats on winning the drawing!! What kind of issues have you had with your baler, and which baler is it? My deal with raking is that I need to flip windrows over when merging in order to insure that the hay gets totally dry. With the Big M, the center windrow would not get moved or even lifted. I use Vermeer bar rakes. Also, The Big M has no forming shields on the wing mowers, so I am concerned that in lighter crop it could get hard to rake up. It is really hard to beat raking two sixteen foot windrows together for baling.

[RCF]

We have a Big Pack 890 (3x3) and the issues we have had I believe all go back to when it baled up the needles and knotters at about 400 bales. That was caused by a little bearing not spinning and throwing the whole thing off timing. Krone put all new knotters, needles, and other stuff on it but it "tweeked" the needle under carriage which effected the needle penetration which got progressively worse and so now we are replacing the needle under carriage. We are also having to replace the rollers on the feeder for the VFS. but krone has helped out with parts and sending reps. down when we needed help. We run Vermeer bar rakes too and I can understand your concern about the middle windrow not being turned.

[Jason B]

IAhaymakr how do you like the krone tedder and how big is it . I have being think about buying a tedder. I was going to the KY farm show and tedders where on the list to look at.