What do you call a marriage of two-rotor rake and round baler-wrapper?

That’d be a BaleTrain – Krone’s novel combination of rower-upper and baler that completes both jobs in a single pass to save labour, fuel and travel time, albeit at the obvious expense of manoeuvrability.

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To minimise the challenges of getting this near-19m long outfit (tractor included) through field gateways and reliably picking up grass around sweeping bends, the company has fitted the rake with a forced steering system.

This, it says, keeps the officially titled Swadro BaleTrain TC 880 Pro faithfully tracking behind the tractor.

A secondary benefit is that it can automatically steer the rake to maintain an even feed of grass into the chamber of the trailing baler.

Heading the combination is the Swadro TC 880, fitted with a variable speed gearbox that splits the 540rpm pto drive so that rotor speed can be altered to suit the conditions without impacting the workings of the baler behind.

At the back, there’s a heavy-duty frame carrying the hitch for the baler – Krone’s ComPack CF 155 XC in this case – and all the pto, hydraulic and electrical connections. 

The two implements are controlled via isobus, with settings displayed on a split-screen or two separate monitors. They can also be uncoupled and used independently.