He's talking about a XERION 4500 that has been in use at Zernikow farm since 2011. Axel Schulze bought it along with an 8 m wide Köckerling Vario cultivator, and sold the 5.7 m wide Quadro that he had used until then. The reason for buying the new machines was that he had taken on management of 500 ha of arable land in addition to his own approximately 1,000 ha farm.
When making the new purchases, Schulze's main intention was to increase capacity. He explains his reasons: "Here in the Uckermark region it gets so cold that root growth stops early in the autumn. So we try to finish drilling by 1st October. Anything drilled later than that suffers yield reductions of up to 20 dt/ha".
Last spring was a perfect example of what can happen in the worst case scenario: 200 ha of rape had to be ploughed up as the previous autumn's drilling wasn't finished on time because the old machines had insufficient capacity. The losses ran to approximately 100,000 euros. "That's why we decided that we needed to increase our capacity."
This year the new XERION at Zernikow farm was used for stubble cultivation, pulling an 8.2 m Carrier. This disc harrow, part of the old machinery fleet, is actually too small for the 4500. Therefore all the ballast weights on the XERION were removed and the tyre pressure was reduced to 0.7 bar. Stubble cultivation was carried out at a working depth of 10 to 12 cm as there was a relatively large amount of straw. The XERION "purred" along at 15 km/h and 1,100 rpm, with fuel consumption of just 5.2 l/ha, achieving a work rate of around 12 ha/h.
Heavy cultivation with the 8 m wide Vector cultivator was carried out at a depth of 25 cm – at 1,600 rpm and up to 12 km/h. The XERION 4500 was ballasted to 21 tonnes with 5 t of additional weights and achieved 13 l/ha fuel consumption and a work rate of 7 ha/h with a tyre pressure of between 1.0 and 1.1 bar.
Axel Schulze believes that the main benefit of the additional capacity is the advantage gained during cultivation and drilling. In previous years the tractor/cultivator combination had to work 1.5 shifts for every shift worked by the drill, but now the 8 m cultivator and 6 m drill can work together. As a result, both machines achieve the same area output and can work on the same fields immediately after one another. This also helps to conserve soil moisture for drilling. Axel lists the advantages of changing his system: "In fact, our capacity has increased enormously. We achieve daily outputs of up to 90 ha. And we need one less worker for cultivation and drilling". And: "We finished drilling 1.380 ha on 2nd October 2011. All we had left was our sugarbeet."
In response to the question of why he chose the XERION rather than another type of tractor, Schulze explains: "Because we use the XERION without dual tyres but can still make use of the large contact area of the 900/60R42 tyres to transfer all the power to the ground. As some of our arable land is up to 25 km from the farm, we also need a machine that we can drive on the road legally and at a speed of 50 km/h. In articulated tractors the axle alone is often too wide."
Although Axel Schulze has only used the new XERION 4500 for 500 hours this year, he is very happy with his choice. "We also regard the machine as an insurance policy – it ensures that we can achieve our full yield. And that's worth a lot." He also praises the machine's reliability: "We've had no problems at all with the tractor. Fuel, maintenance and that's it – you're ready to go."