The company decided to develop a forage harvester a few years ago and has employed the development expertise of Fendt’s Marktoberdorf headquarters for the project. Experienced engineers in the forage harvester development team received support from the professionals in tractor development, for example, for the hydraulics, electronics, engine and cab. This led to new ideas and enabled completely new approaches in the development of the Fendt Katana 65 forage harvester.
The forager’s name, Katana, which the engineers chose for the new product, signifies how high the aims for this development are. A katana is a Japanese samurai sword and stands for high performance, sharpness and precision.
The Fendt Katana 65 has already undergone several hundreds of hours of testing on the test bench and has already harvested thousands of hectares of maize and grass. Two prototypes have already been in real-life operation for two years with great success. They have proved to be extremely fuel efficient and deliver outstanding chopping quality with a high output.
To attain the best flow rate and uniform crop flow, the core units of the Fendt Katana 65 have generous dimensions. The chopping drum, with a 720 mm diameter, is the largest on the market and the intake area with six rollers guarantees constant crop feed for all cutting lengths. For the corn cracker, Fendt has taken a completely different path than the competition, not only in the way it swings in and out, but, above all, in regard to efficiency. For the header, Fendt uses the tried and tested technology from Kemper, which is offered as a factory solution.
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| Fendt’s Katana 65 forager is powered by a 650hp Mercedes engine. |
The new machine is powered by a 650hp, 16-litre, V8 engine from Mercedes. At first, only this model will be available for the market launch at the beginning of 2011. Based on the outstanding performance of the forage harvester in numerous test operations, further models are planned. The Fendt Katana will rely on SCR technology for compliance with the Stage 3b emissions standard. As in the tractor division, exhaust after-treatment with AdBlue urea solution also offers huge benefits in fuel efficiency and cooling performance.
The completely new cab, designed especially for the forage harvester, meets the highest demands. When designing the electronics, it was also possible to take advantage of the expertise from tractor electronics development. In addition to the basic design with canbus communication, the multi-function armrest with the new joystick and the 10.4-inch Vario terminal were also adopted.
The Fendt rear-axle suspension on the Katana 65 sets new standards in the field and on the road. Road-handling is also excellent at a top speed of 40km/hr and provides maximum driving safety and stability as well as the best ride comfort. Here, too, the development profited from knowledge derived from manufacturing tractors.
The Fendt forage harvester will be produced at a new Agco production site at Hohenmölsen, Germany. The future assembly staff are currently working at Marktoberdorf, setting up the prototypes, so that they can familiarise themselves with the machine from the very beginning.
For more information visit: www.fendt.com.
