John Deere has added two new models to its 9000 Series self-propelled forage harvester range. At the heart of the 9500 and 9600 is an all-new 18-litre John Deere engine producing 700 and 750hp respectively.

The 9000 Series foragers are well known for HarvestMotion, the company’s unique low engine RPM concept which boosts productivity and efficiency, with 10 per cent more performance and 10 per cent lower fuel consumption. Building on this success, the 9500 and 9600 utilise the new JD18X engine, which requires no DEF.

This award-winning engine design introduces HarvestMotion Plus, which delivers an exceptional torque rise and even more power at low engine RPM. It also produces extra power up to 766hp on the 9500 and 787hp on the 9600. All these features will provide customers with a 10 per cent lower fuel cost per harvested tonne and 33 per cent lower oil cost compared to other machines in the same horsepower class.

The new 9500 and 9600 self-propelled foragers also come with a new, 20cm longer eight-row spout design, featuring optimised contours and styling to enable a higher throughput. Servicing is made easier by additional openings to help increase machine uptime.

The large crop channel width of 850mm is tailored to handle the tremendous throughput of these machines, to ensure the best possible forage quality and chopping efficiency. Because of the higher engine horsepower, these new foragers feature a reinforced drivetrain and improved mainframe. The proven DuraDrum cutterhead is also designed to handle massive crop flows independent of the selected length of cut.

Kernel processor Rolls are available with a standard sawtooth design on the Premium KP unit, and either the sawtooth or a new XCut design on the XStream KP, which features a spiral cut groove across the roll surface. Both roll designs are also available with the proven Dura Line heavy-duty coating for increased durability.

These two new 9000 Series self-propelled forage harvesters are available with John Deere’s complete range of ISG (Intelligent Solutions Group) precision farming systems, for improved operator comfort and cutting quality. These include:

• the HarvestLab 3000 NIR (near infrared) sensor – view and document real-time measurements of crop yield, moisture and other constituents such as protein, starch, fibre etc as totals or in convenient site-specific maps;
• HarvestLab 3000 also enables AutoLOC automatic length-of-cut settings and silage additive dosing on the move, based on dry matter content;
• the same sensor system can be used in stationary mode for analysing clamp silage in order to manage feed rations more accurately, and for analysing the constituents in manure (eg N, NH₄, P & K) when operating a slurry tanker;
• AutoTrac automatic steering;
• MachineSync automatically coordinates trailer speed and position with the forager;
• RowSense feeler guidance allows the forager to automatically follow maize rows;
• Active Fill Control (AFC) for automatic filling of trailers;
• the JohnDeere Operations Center web portal for active fleet management and displaying both machine and harvest data.

John Deere