In five years, Austrian farm machinery specialist Pöttinger has doubled its turnover to E240m, resulting in 2007/2008 being the company’s best-ever year.

Expanding markets for the family firm’s ploughs, cultivators, drills and forage harvesting machinery aimed at the bigger spreads in north America and western abd eastern Europe have boosted export sales to the present 84% of turnover, according to managing partner Klaus Pöttinger.

Hectare-eating performance is definitely the theme for the planned 2009 machinery line-up. New implements for next year include the Novacat V10, claimed to be the largest mounted disc-mower combination available. Mowing width is up to 10m (33ft) with a system allowing up to 20cm (8in) overlapping for cutting curves and hillside work to avoid missed strips of standing crop.

The Alpha-motion suspended framework on the rear three-point linkage carries two eight-disc mowers teamed up with a 3m or 3.5m (10ft or 11.5ft) front-mounted mower (a new linkage allows for one or the other width to be hitched up-front), the Alpha-motion floating suspension having already proved itself for contour-hugging cutting height precision at high speeds.

Weight of the twin rear mowers is 2300kg and power needed for the complete rig is 135hp, according to Pöttinger. New crop conditioners can be added to the implement including a polyurethane roller system with 20cm-diameter rollers.

Large-scale output also comes from the new Pöttinger Terrasem C6 and C8 trailed pneumatic drill and cultivator combinations.

Working widths are 6m/20ft (48-row) and 8m/26ft (65-row) and seed hopper capacity 3000 and 4000 litres (the latter extendable to a massive 5000 litres). The minimum cultivation train with tines and disc harrows also features a tyred packer roller, each tyre covering four disc coulters.

First demonstration models in Austria this autumn come with double disc coulters (parallelogram-mounted). The cultivator gangs as well as the coulter line are split into three for ground-hugging seeding-depth uniformity.

Seed flow is electronically metered, the C8 having two external seed distributors and the C6 one. A central coulter pressure adjustment allows 50-130kg variation and ISOBUS control is also available. Pöttinger says the C6 needs about 190hp pulling power with its bigger brother looking for something along the lines of 280hp.