Fendt has just regained the title of biggest standard (small wheels at the front, big wheels at the back) tractor on the market.

The record was held by MF’s 370hp 8690, but Fendt has now hit the 390hp mark with its new top-of-the-range model.

The 939 may be the model in the limelight, but the German maker has made changes throughout its 900 Vario series. Engine capacities on the Deutz power plants have grown from 7.2 to 7.8 litres and injection pressures have been pushed up to 2000bar. An electronically-controlled turbo wastegate is now fitted too.

More significantly, all the 900-series tractors now sport a blue filling cap as well as the standard green one, signifying that they have Agco’s Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) system for cutting emissions levels.

As well as meeting the latest Tier 3 regs, Fendt reckons the 900 Vario tractors should see fuel consumption fall back 7-10% compared to the previous model. The 922 Vario model has been dropped, meaning that the 900 series now runs from 240hp to 390hp.

The 900 series also now gets the same Variotronic terminal that appeared on the 800 series models earlier this year. There’s a choice of two armrest-mounted touchscreens – 7in or 10.4in – both of them with a neat cluster of buttons in case you don’t want to use the touchscreen facility.

Virtually everything can be monitored and altered on this screen, says Fendt, including tractor and implement settings, GPS autosteer guidance, field and crop info and up to two CCTV cameras.

Production of the tractor begins at the end of the year.

Across Europe, farmers and contractors are travelling faster, carrying heavier loads and spending more time on the road. Gearboxes are getting faster too – the new 900 Vario series come with 60kph (40mph) transmissions as standard.

Fendt has responded to that trend by offering pneumatic ABS as an option on all 900 Vario models from December 2010, putting it in a select group of tractor makers (JCB, Unimog and, soon, Case IH) to offer ABS. Cost is expected to be about EUR5500.

Fendt is also pushing ahead with the introduction of its VarioGrip central tyre inflation (CTI) system, first seen at last November’s Agritechnica machinery show. It says it will have the system ready for sale in mid-2011 at a cost of about EUR8000.

After-market central tyre inflation systems have been available for some time, and about 100 farmers and contractors across Germany are thought to use them. However this is the first time standard tractors will have with a factory-fit version, says Fendt.

One of the main technical obstacles in the past has been maintaining the durability of the internal rotary seal through which air passes on its way to the tyre and back again. But Fendt engineers reckon they are close to cracking the problem.

Although it is pricey, the benefits of CTI are appealing. Tyre pressures can be lowered when arriving at the field and raised again when going back on the road. That means better traction and lower ground pressure when working and less tyre wear (and better safety) on the road.

Using a dedicated compressor to increase tyre pressure by 1bar takes about 10 minutes, says the company, while dropping it by the same amount takes two minutes. That’s rather quicker than the current after-market systems, it says, which use the tractor’s standard compressor. The whole process is done from the Variotronic screen.