A WIDE-RANGING press launch has seen the Kverneland Group showcase its new products ahead of their launch at this year's Agritechnica.

It's been three years since the Japan's Kubota took over the Kverneland group and in that time developments have been coming thick and fast. This is evident with its Kverneland and Vicon brands and the group has pulled no punches with quite a list of additions to its portfolio.

World first:

A WORLD first is being claimed for Vicon's new round baler and wrapper combination - the Fastbale is reckoned to be the world's only non-stop fixed chamber baler and as well as being the world's only non-stop fixed chamber baler wrapper combination.

Designed and developed at Kverneland's baler competence centre at Ravenna, in Italy, the new baler integrates a pre-chamber with a main chamber and a wrapper. It will continue to undergo field evaluation throughout 2015 in the main markets in Europe, before its show launch in November.

Latest enhancements to the non-stop bale production process include a bale tipping kit to place bales on their side after being released from the wrapper, and the development of a film-on-film applicator kit for those looking to avoid the use of net to secure the bale.

The layout is innovative, with two chambers arranged in series, allowing a number of rollers to be shared. Operating as a pre-chamber, the first section of FastBale produces two-thirds of the bale. As the pre-chamber reaches its preset density, crop flow is diverted into the main bale chamber allowing baling to continue non-stop.

The pre-chamber is then opened, moving the pre-formed bale into the main chamber, where it can be taken to its maximum size of 1.25m. Once bale formation is complete, crop flow is switched back to the pre-chamber, again to allow baling to continue non-stop.

Net is then applied to the completed bale, the tailgate is opened and the finished bale is transferred onto the wrapper.

To make bale transfer simple, reliable and fuss-free, the engineering team devised a wrapper frame mounted on a parallel linkage. This enables the wrapper to be lowered to meet the completed bale as it simply rolls from the main chamber. This avoids the need for a complex mechanical transfer system.

At this point, the wrapper is raised to allow twin satellite arms to wrap the bale. Unlike traditional wrapping mechanisms, FastBale's twin satellite arms offer a fresh look at the wrapping process and rotate in a vertical plane. Once complete, the wrapper is lowered, and the rear wrapper roller is then raised, gently releasing the wrapped bale onto the ground.

Incidentally, Kverneland Group management were hesitant when asked if a large square baler would be gracing its portfolio, with no firm commitment made, for the short-term at least.

Vicon tedder:

ALSO FOR grassland work is the Vicon Fanex 764 (or Kverneland 8576 for some markets), which is a 7.6m tedder designed to perform perfect in all crop conditions.

The 764 is a 7.6m, six-rotor tedder fitted with seven tine arms per rotor. One of the benefits is that the complete machine, except for the pto to tractor, is designed to be 100% maintenance-free.

The tine arm design, with flat steel tine arms, ensures that high loads can be transferred without any bending of the arms, leading to optimum tedding, even in the heaviest crop.

Additionally, the strong vibration dampers provide stable and accurate running characteristics, leading to an even spreading pattern across the complete 7.6m working width. All standard settings, like rotor and tine angle adjustment and setting for border tedding is easily done, according to the manufacturer.

Suspension feature:

KVERNELAND'S new suspension feature provides easy and simple setting of ground pressure on the 2800 mower series.

For greater comfort for the operator, the ground pressure of the large suspension spring is set hydraulically from the tractor cab.

This solution allows accurate and instant setting of ground pressure and is all done from the tractor seat. The hydraulic version adjusts the tension on the large suspension spring, which controls the ground pressure, to increase or lower pressure.

The range extends from the Kverneland 2828M at 2.8m working width to the 2840M model with 4m width.