Challenger, The new world record tractor (or is it a spaceship?)

challenger 1

It seems impossible, but it’s real: 644ha cultivated in 24hrs. This means the capacity of cultivating an area the size of a football pitch every two minutes, and the monster that achieved this record is the world’s biggest tractor - a 570hp, AGCO Challenger MT875B. In 24hrs it cultivated a massive 644ha - or 780 football pitches - working with a set of 14m wide Gregoire Besson XXL discs. The astonishing mark was established near Timisoara, Romania.

In 24 hours the machines covered an area 6.4km long by 1km wide, which is equivalent to a 155mm wide strip passing around the equator! The average workrate for this standard production Challenger MT875B tractor was 26.8ha/hr - a rate of over 30 football pitches every hour. But it achieved this at a remarkably low fuel consumption of just 4.42 litres/ha - four soft drink bottles of fuel!

challenger 2

Besides having this extraordinary performance, the challenger proved to be extremely friendly with it’s driver. The cabin boasts 108 cubic feet of space with improved noise reduction from previous models. There is ergonomic placement of controls, an air suspended seat, a 12 vent air conditioner system and panoramic views from large windows. Also, it’s auto-Guide automatic steering system allowes the tractor to work at forward speeds of up to 20km, day and night and ’see’ through high dust levels. This not only relieves the stress on the driver, it also eliminates over- or under-lapping by accurately steering the tractor in precise straight lines parallel to the previous pass.

This world-beating output and efficiency demonstrates how using the latest technology, agri-businesses across the globe can cut production costs.

Sources: Euroinvestor, Websphere