At the "Machine of the Year 2017" awards ceremony held at SIMA, CLAAS walked away with the Special Jury Prize for their JAGUAR forage harvester fitted with SHREDLAGE® crop processing technology. A large audience was on hand for the ceremony held at the booth of French agricultural magazine Terre-net.
The patented technology was originally developed in the United States and represents a new way of processing corn silage being adopted by an increasing number of dairy farmers. SHREDLAGE corn silage is processed at a longer-than-normal chop length of 26 to 30 millimeters using a unique SHREDLAGE cracker available exclusively for the JAGUAR forage harvester. The intensively “shredded” conditioning of the material increases the surface area of the chopped product many times over in a way that is designed to significantly improve bacterial fermentation after ensiling, and above all, during digestion in the cow's rumen. The aim of this process is to substantially increase the structural effects of corn silage in the rumen while simultaneously making the starch contained in all plant parts more available, which could lead to an increase in milk yields. Additionally, the rumen-friendly silage structure is believed to improve the health of the herd.
SHREDLAGE offers dairy farmers other benefits as well. Its optimum starch conditioning allows for a reduction in the use of concentrated feed while still improving the milk yield. The need to supplement with highly structured fodder such as straw can be reduced or even eliminated altogether, producing even more savings. The SHREDLAGE rollers are manufactured by CLAAS Industrietechnik in Paderborn, Germany.
This was the second year that the "Machine of the Year" awards have been presented at SIMA by the French magazine Terre-Net in cooperation with the German agricultural publisher DLV. The awards honor the world's best innovations in agricultural technology. A panel of journalists from several European countries specializing in agricultural machinery select winners in the competition's 17 categories. This year approximately 70 applications were received for consideration by the panel.
Source : Claas