CLAAS presents three new "Disco" mowers
As the 250,000th mower leaves the German factory in Bad Salgau, CLAAS is launching a new generation of front-mounted Disco series mowers. Designed to cover all needs, three different ranges are coming onto the market, from the compact and lightweight Disco 3150F without conditioner to the all-purpose Disco F Profil without conditioner or with tine or roller conditioner and with mechanical spring suspension or with hydropneumatic Active Float, up to the Disco Move with integrated Active Float suspension and hydraulic height control independent of the tractor's lifting arms. All Claas Disco front mowers can be combined with a wide range of Disco side and triple mowers: from the simple front-rear combination with side hitch and center of gravity suspension to the powerful biomass mower with conditioner and swath grouper. With the “18 to 12” strategy, which features combined wide spreading and swath grouping using the Auto Swather belt units, a mowing width of 18 meters can be combined into 12 meters for the following four-rotor Liner rake. This optimizes the forage harvesting phases and enables active control of the drying process.
With the introduction of these new offerings, the current CLAAS Disco product range comprises almost 40 different models with working widths from 2.20 to 10.70 meters.
Continuous innovation. The German company says that Disco disc mowers have been at the forefront of international design since 1996, with innovations such as the Max Cut wave-shaped cutterbar, the Active Float hydropneumatic suspension or the folding transporters. In 2007, this ongoing evolution saw the 90-degree vertical folding ability previously used on rear-mounted mowers, replaced by the 120-degree transport position with the center of gravity moved inwards. Since 2021, the Disco 4400's vector folding ability enables safe road transport for working widths of 4.20 m, an innovation extended to the Disco 1010 with working widths of up to 9.90 m. And there is more. The Safety Link and angled pivot point on the arms protect the cutterbar and arms from damage in the event of contact with obstacles and large foreign objects. The Safety Link has a preset breaking point that isolates the drive shaft from the affected cutting disc, thus preventing more serious damage to the cutterbar and adjacent discs, while the angled pivot point on the arms lifts the mower not only horizontally, but also diagonally, away from the hazardous area. Large-scale Disco mowers have been available with Auto Swather swath grouping belt units for more than 15 years. In 2023, the flagship Disco 9700 RC Auto Swather with roller conditioner for highly productive biomass crops with yields above 60t/ha was introduced, while Direct Swather technology combined with a conical swath auger enabled swath grouping without a conditioner, making it an efficient option for lighter four-cylinder tractors.
The cutterbar. The Max Cut bar is standard on all Claas mowers, ensuring high capacity combined with a high cutting frequency at a reduced PTO speed of just 850 rpm. The innovative cutterbar features a bolted, torsionally flexible structure made of steel with a one-piece stamped base structure, and mowing discs equipped with anti-wear parts that double their life and knife carriers with a tungsten carbide coating on the underside, normally found only in professional soil cultivation tools. Other innovative and practical ideas from the Claas developers in Bad Salgau include the knife box for storing new and used blades and the introduction of red-painted disc and knife covers, which make changing knives easier and quicker. Finally, it is worth noting that Automatic Slope Control adjusts Active Float ground pressure control and Auto Swather belt speed when mowing on slopes, to improve swath formation and reduce slippage and wear.
Investment of EUR 50 million. Claas commitment to haymaking is embodied in the ForageGo! project by means of which the group has invested more thna EUR 50 million in infrastructure and production facilities since 2023. New assembly lines for Volto tedders have been installed and a new logistics center with a total area of 9,500 m2 is currently under construction. It is scheduled for completion in late summer 2025.
