THE CLAAS Harvest Centre (CHC) team in Esperance has recorded one of the biggest sales years on record, with the CLAAS Lexion combines in demand this harvest.
The dealership sold 17 new models including thirteen 1000 Series models and three 700 Series models and traded and sold another 12 models.
CHC branch manager Damien O'Neill said the Lexion had shone in difficult South Coast harvest environments, particularly harvesting moist crops.
"The Lexion has made significant inroads into the WA header market over the past few years," Mr O'Neill said.
"Esperance grain growers have been quick to identify the advantages of the CLAAS technology in the Lexions which produce almost zero grain loss, while enjoying the benefits of reduced fuel consumption and inherent cost efficiencies of the harvest operation, through the fully automatic Cemos Automatic System which every new owner wanted."
The automatic system continuously adjusts features such as grain separation and cleaning, allowing the machine to always operate at maximum capacity while still maintaining grain quality.
Components controlled by the automatic system include rotor and fan speed along with the sieves, which assists with the cleaning process.
These functions are shown on the system terminal so operators can keep a track of what adjustments are being made.
The rationale is to maximise throughput, minimise fuel consumption, maintain high grain quality and optimise balance of the machine.
The company also has introduced the Cmotion control switch, which handles much of the operation of the header.
The system is designed to be as intuitive as possible with data accessed anywhere via the internet and information such as yield mapping, viewed graphically for easier dissemination.
"The Lexion is providing much tighter harvesting windows that are making big differences to owners' bottom line, particularly with severe weather events," Mr O'Neill said.
"We are seeing owners being able to harvest up to five hectares an hour more than our competitors and staying out later.
"This can save up to 50 rotor hours a harvest, reduce your harvest program by five days and save $20,000 of diesel fuel.
"This is huge when capital machinery costs are a large input cost to a grower's program.
"Owners also like the Lexion's ability to adjust threshing and cleaning adjustments on-the-go by using a live grain quality monitoring camera.
"And the Lexion has become that advanced it is now able to scan the crop density with a radar looking for light and heavy patches of crop before the harvester approaches so it can speed up or slow down the machine before the front begins taking the crop in for processing.
"So it's making changes in advance of crop conditions to keep the machine consistent with engine load, crop throughput and no losses."