John Deere’s wider HDR and HDF draper platforms provide productivity boost for Australian farmers

John Deere says updates to its front-end equipment line-up, including two new 60-foot (18.3m) hinge-draper platforms, will allow broadacre farmers to cover more hectares, more efficiently in crucial harvest windows. The new HDR60 and HDF60 deliver the same hinge-draper performance and crop-feeding advantages of the HDR50 and HDF50, including the three-piece cam reel, while increasing cutting width. They can be paired with the X9 combine to provide a boost to harvesting capacity. The HDR60 and HDF60 can be matched with the latest predictive ground speed automation updates and harvest settings automation, technologies that continuously align machine performance to changing crop, ground and yield conditions to maintain throughput, grain quality and loss targets. The HDR60 and HDF60 are suitable for the model year 2027 X9 combine harvesters which feature a longer unloading auger and increased grain tank capacity. Additional features of the MY27 combine provide further enhancements in productivity and efficiency, and now with the HDR60 enable the performance to be fully realised. “Australian growers are always looking for productivity improvements and the additional width of the 60’ HDR and HDF platforms coupled with the MY27 X9 combines provides an unparalleled harvest package,” said Royce Bell, John Deere production and precision ag marketing manager. “The wider fronts and the MY27 automation updates will help deliver successful harvests under more diverse crop conditions and across more crop types, while minimising the level of intervention required by the operator.” The MY27 combine expanded automation, threshing, grain handling, and operator features allow automation under a wider range of crop and field conditions, while minimising the level of intervention required by the operator. Harvest settings automation helps operators into the field faster by automatically setting concave clearance, fan speed, rotor speed, sieve clearance, and chaffer clearance, based on the combine model, crop type and geolocation. For MY27, it has been expanded to apply to oats, lentils, peas, rye, triticale and sunflower crops. Predictive ground speed automation controls the combine’s ground speed based on crop height and biomass measurements taken pre-harvest from satellite scans and from on-the-go measurements made by cab-mounted cameras. Machines equipped with predictive ground speed automation will also be capable of using an operator-defined crop throughput target as an additional automation setting. “These updates address some of the most important factors that can influence success at harvest time, including getting crops off as quickly as possible and supporting less experienced operators in the field, to deliver optimal time use and consistency,” Mr Bell said. “In the past harvest year, features like harvest settings automation and predictive ground speed automation delivered productivity improvements of up to 20 per cent, with a 10 per cent increase in fluid efficiency. “These new features and wider fronts give our customers an even greater range of tools to succeed at harvest.”