At 12m (40ft) Biso’s new Crop Ranger VX1200 is the biggest combine header you can buy in western Europe.

Apparently as combines have grown, headers have been the limiting factor. More power and greater threshing capacity can only be exploited if enough crop is coming in. A wider header manages this and slows monster machines like Claas’ Lexion 600, John Deere’s 9880 STS and New Holland’s CR9080 down to a sensible pace.

The 12m wide cutterbar can flex by up to 15cm (6in) to accommodate uneven terrain and is driven from both ends. The feed auger is split with a support to one side of the main intake. The reel also has an offset support at the other side of the central crop intake.

Like other Biso headers, the table can extend by up to 60cm for tall and laid crops and side-knives are built into both left and right dividers.

To support all this weight, the Crop Ranger has a pair of wheels at either end. These are mounted on hydraulic rams which are plumbed into the combine’s self-levelling circuit so that it accurately follows contours. This also means that the harvester is required to carry less weight and allows an air-bag suspension system to be used.

Cleverly, there’s no need for a trailer to transport the monster header on the road. Instead, the support wheels’ telescopic bogeys extend and swing round underneath the table to support the header for transport.

Apparently suitable for fitting to any combine around the 500hp mark, the Crop Ranger VX1200 Premium Plus costs 55,000euros.