Is the transverse combine really at its limit? AGCO engineers decided to revisit this question by building and testing processors and combines until they found a con!guration that could dramatically increase capacity and capability without making the combine much heavier or larger.

While the Super Series has always been a new design, it preserves many of the exclusive Gleaner technologies that have given Gleaners their high performance. The Super Series still use distribution augers, accelerator rolls and two-stage cleaning to get better samples and less loss in tough conditions.

The S7 prototype spent the summer of 2009 on the wheat run with customer harvesters where it was decaled to appear like a standard R Series; you can recognize the S7 by the different hood and the amount of material coming out the back. The machine then made its way to the very wet fall harvest of 2009 in the corn belt. We took everything we learned from those trips and built it into today’s Gleaner Super Series.

The !rst production Super Series rolled off the line in spring of 2010. This machine was destined to get out in the harvest and cut alongside the competition so that we could make comparisons. Evaluating combines against each other is tough business. Combines react to different conditions in different ways. It has always been tough to compare performance when the !elds, crop and conditions can be so very different.

The summer 2010 wheat run by the S7 was the !nal chapter in years of development and !eld testing. Gleaner Natural Flow™ harvesting technology has been constantly improved and developed since its 1979 introduction. The new Gleaner Super Series builds on decades of experience while delivering design innovations that allowit to set new standards for capacity, ef!ciency and productivity. The Super Series combines are poised to rede!ne the performance customers expect from Class VI and Class VII combines.

By mid-summer 2010, the S7 had harvested in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas in wheat crops with a wide range of yields and conditions. The S7 joined a succession of custom harvest crews running both Gleaner and competitive brands of combines. Combine customers and dealers visiting the harvest sites and riding in the S7 reported very favorable impressions of the bushels per hour harvested, the clean grain samples produced and the ef!cient fuel use.

As the word about the black S7 “Stealth” Super Seven began to travel, more people took notice. One group "ew in from North Dakota to see the machine and it was not uncommon for trucks to stop on the side of the road to get a glimpse. Yet, as intriguing as the new Super Seven has been for people unfamiliar with Gleaner combines, current Gleaner owners really showed their excitement over a new, higher-capacity machine. From the beginning, we tested the Super Series prototype alongside some of the most experienced and professional harvesters in the business. You’ll !nd few with the experience and ability of Gossen Harvesting.

The Gossen Harvesting operation cuts a big swath from their home in Corn, Oklahoma, clear up to Montana- cutting wheat, milo, barley, corn and soybeans along the way. Gossen’s lineup includes nine late-model Gleaners and a whole cadre of combine headers, trucks and a service out!t that would make most mechanics envious.

Gossen Harvesting is famous for their long runs and unrelenting schedules. It is not uncommon for the team to string together 1,000-acre days for a month or two. Considering their extreme ability and knowledge, they were the perfect operators to test the Super Seven. Gleaner test engineers spent the 2009 harvest run with the Gossens and returned for part of the 2010 harvest run.

The transverse rotor is unfamiliar to many, but it is essentially built from the conventional transverse threshing system that virtually all combine manufacturers relied on for years.

Because competitive combines have a rotor that turns a different direction than the "ow of crop, the crop must be shifted and then fed with beater, auger or some other system to stuff the crop into the rotor. In a Gleaner, the crop is drawn into the rotor by the rotor itself. This saves horsepower and reduces rotor loss andplugging.

The rotor position also creates a change in the combine’s weight distribution and center of gravity. The transverse rotor sits forward and low in the machine. This allows the grain tank to be deeper, thereby holding the weight of the grain in a low centerline.

Gossen Harvesting certainly runs Gleaners for their low weight, high capacity, clean samples and portability, but the ease of servicing the machine is perhaps of as much importance to the custom harvester. Because the Gleaner uses straight-through shafts, major systems can be accessed, inspected and serviced in far less time and with far less hassle than with competitive machines. Other design details also focus on accessibility and serviceability. The engine bay is designed so an operator can walk all the way around the engine. A door in the grain tank opens right into the top of the processor. You can get the rotor out of a Gleaner in literally a fraction of the time it takes to remove an axial rotor. To the busy farmer and the precision custom harvester, the speed and reduced cost of maintenance is crucial.

Running with our existing "eet has taught us much about the limits we can push and the improvements we can make. You can see the signatures of Gossen Harvesting and the very best ideas from Gleaner dealers in the many innovations on Gleaner combines. We’re proud that our innovation comes from the farms, !elds and dealerships where the best combine operators and technicians prove themselves every day.

Our trip gave us a great opportunity to run the S7 alongside Case IH and John Deere combines in matched conditions. This allowed us to compare capacity, fuel use and sample quality in many identical situations. Having a chance to harvest with combines side by side has allowed us to make some interesting comparisons.

One comparison is based on a claim that the Gleaner’s feeder house is too narrow. It is true that the feeder house on the S7 is narrower than the feeder house on most competitive machines. However, there is a very important factor that sometimes gets left out when making this comparison: When the crop enters the Gleaner feeder house, it stays the same width and travels in the same direction all the way into the rotor. The crop mat never gets compressed or shifted and the motion of the rotor actually draws the crop mat up and into the rotor.

The Deere combine we ran with had a feeder house that was wider than the Gleaner feeder house, but its rotor was narrower than its feeder house, which meant the crop mat had to be compressed. In the Gleaner,the rotor is fed at the same size of the feeder house opening, which means crop is not shifted or compressed. Also, the rotor on the Deere could not draw crop in on its own like the Gleaner but used a separate feeding system. Compression, shifting the crop mat and additional feeding systems all cost horsepower. Our dealers tell us the best way to see if you’re wasting horsepower in your feeding system is to look for the wear. If crop is rubbing excessively inside your feeding system, it’s taking your horsepower to do so.

Because of the typical low rainfall and high winds in Colby, many of the farms in the region are dedicated no-till operations. Compaction can happen from driving heavy trucks in the !eld, harvesting while the ground is wet, driving grain carts with tires that are too small and from combines that are simply too heavy. These farmers can’t till up the ground to reverse the problem, as exposing lower layers of soil to the sun and wind will cost much-needed moisture. It leaves farmers dependent on natural processes to relieve thecompaction, which can take as long as ten years.

There has been a trend among combine manufacturers to keep building bigger, heavier combines. At Gleaner, we’ve learned that more and more farmers are discovering the liability a heavier machine can cost. Compaction turns into lower yields. Some farmers won’t even let customer harvesters in their !elds with heavy combines.

For this reason, the Super Seven was designed to have increased capacity without a large increase in weight. While the Super Seven is dramatically more ef!cient and productive than our R series, it only weighs about 900 lbs. more. As Gleaner combines are already dramatically lighter than competitive machines, the Super Seven can deliver remarkable capacity without compromising your future yields from compaction.

Another thing we heard people talk about in Colby was grain sample quality. Elevators are becoming less tolerant of foreign material in the grain and a bad sample can be a cost for farmers. The Super Seven delivers a clean sample thanks to an established and improved process that started in 1979 and continues in today’s Super Seven.

Unlike any other combine, the Gleaner R and Super Series combines propel grain through the air curtain rather than letting it fall. This is done for two reasons. Propelling the grain allows us to blow more air through it without the grain blowing out the back. Also, the grain is always propelled in the same direction regardless of the tilt of the combines, making the Gleaner’s cleaning system gravity-independent.This !rst stage of cleaning removes the majority of foreign material from the grain. Next, the grain lands on the sieve where two separate air blasts lift up and blow out remaining foreign material.

The Super Seven uses this time-tested process with some unique improvements. Customers who have tested the machine are telling us the grain-sample quality is unmatched.

Engineers were once convinced they could not expand on the very ef!cient and effective design of the transverse combine because combines could not be wider. In 2008, AGCO engineers solved this problem by instead increasing the diameter of the rotor. The added capacity of the rotor led to needed increases in the accompanying systems for cleaning and handling grain. The combine was completed with several other functional improvements based on years of testing and re!ning the platform.

The Super Series is unique in that it gained capacity without increasing machine weight and actually decreased fuel consumption per bushel harvested. The new design retains or improves elements of earlier designs that have provided Gleaner its legendary low loss levels and high sample quality.

The resulting machines offer all the nimbleness of our prior R Series with a signi!cant increase in capacity and capability. For those farmers who want all of the performance without all the bulk, we present to you our latest innovation: the Gleaner Super Series.

“Transverse rotor combines are an outdated design.”

On the contrary, the transverse represents a design far ahead of its time with the lowest center of gravity and a much more balanced weight distribution, allowing us to carry greater grain bin capacities (largest standard bin capacity @ 330 bu. on a Class VII machine) and operate in conditions that heavier, higher-center-of-gravity machines have dif!culty in.

The Super Series has fastest unloading rate at 4.0 bu. per sec. with our unique two-auger system for less wear, reduced horsepower requireed and greater productivity. Our unique Natural Flow™ system eliminates the need for 90-degree gearboxes and provides for straight-through drives and simplicity of design. This maintains the width of crop mat from time it enters the feeder house to the time it enters the rotary processor. No need for beaters to take a wide crop and reduce it to !t into the rotor as in other machines, creating a pinch point. This intake or transition area is a source of high wear in all other designs. 360-degree wrap around our rotor allows us greater threshing and separation area in a more compact package versus others with 160-180 degree of wrap. We are able to accomplish in one rotor pass what takes competitors two passes.

Our distribution auger and accelerator roll design is far ahead of its time providing unmatched two-stage cleaning and no slope sensitivity up to 23% slopes. No other combine can make that claim. Only Gleaner transverse combines feature a total integrated design to assure superior cleaning and consistent shoe performance on slopes.

“Transverse rotors are limited in size and capacity.”

Our perforated processor provides 360 degrees of threshing and separation area and allows us to !t it in a compact package. This design still leaves us a lot of room to increase capacity further without increasing height, width and weight as other designs have done. The Super Seven uses a larger rotor and larger accelerator rolls in its Tritura processor.

“Gleaner is more complicated than other machines.”

The transverse is one of the simplest designs, straight-through shafts means no 90-degree gearboxes, easier servicing, and almost everything can be serviced with both feet on the ground. We have simpli!ed things even further by eliminating ten grease points on the machine last year. No one has better accessibility for routine servicing than a transverse.

A Gleaner uses transverse shafts in the feeding, processing and separating area, which are remarkably simple compared to other designs. There’s one in the feeder house, one in the middle, one at the cylinder and the !nal at the chopper with power never changing direction. Competitive designs have either more transitions or change direction. One competitive design in particular must transition and change direction of the crop "ow in order to distribute its crop mat out and use its concave completely. Every transition in crop and power is an opportunity for problems. That’s why Gleaner has minimized them.

Truth, lies and the transverse combine.Most Ag dealers know that if you get a chance to drive a Gleaner combine, you’ll probably buy one. If the clean sample and sheer simplicity of design don’t win you over, the fuel savings and price probably will. For this reason, many dealers that can’t sell Gleaners have chosen to engage in all manner of !bbing, gossip, rumoring, poppycock, tomfoolery and outright lies.

It’s time we set the record straight. Here are some of the whoppers you might have heard presented along with something you may not have: the truth.

“Gleaner loses more grain than others.”

Gleaner transverse combines have one of the lowest loss levels of any machine. We tend to have less shoe loss than competitive machines due to less shoe load because of our accelerator roll design.

“You can never find the parts.”

If you have an AGCO dealer, you have access to one of the most ef!cient and sophisticated parts systems in the world. AGCO continues to emphasize providingincreased parts support to our dealers. Our objective is to provide a higher parts !ll at the counter for our customers at every transaction.

“Gleaner weighs less because it is not built as tough.”

The transverse is the only combine with a welded unitized mainframe versus competitive machines with bolted frames. This welded mainframe provides a !rm foundation for shafts and bearings and other combine components for longer life and integrity. Our unique design provides for capacity without bulkiness, increased weight, and higher center of gravity as in other machines. As you will see in the near future, our design parameter was to increase capacity without dramatically increasing weight and height. We will

accomplish this while keeping our overall weight at 31,000 lbs. Many of the other machines are 2 to 2 # tons heavier than our machine. Much of the fuel and horsepower must be used to move the laden weight of the combine through the !eld. As rotary machines are horsepower limited, we are able to deliver more horsepower to provide more effective net horsepower to the machine.

“Gleaner is only a wheat combine.”

It’s true. Gleaner has an incredible reputation for unmatched capacity in wheat. But over the last !ve years, we have dramatically increased the capacity in other crops such as green-stem soybeans and high-moisture corn. Such great innovations as the CDF rotor, steep-pitch helicals, increased feed conveyor capacity, and improved residue disposal have contributed to this. We refer to this as super-sizing the machine in all functional areas. Over 30 innovations have been incorporated in the last 24 months alone to the transverse. You will see some more changes in the near future that will increase capacity dramatically in corn and soybeans and will reinforce our point: “If you think you know us… think again.”