The most extreme agricultural machines ever made

In the agricultural world, making something bigger and more efficient is no longer an issue. Every year, machines are being dreamed up, tractors and combine harvesters, special harvesters appear on the market that are many times the size and power of conventional farm machinery. Some of them are very extreme and look nothing like the machines used today.

The record-breaking tractor: the Big Bud 16V-747

Known as the world’s largest tractor, the Big Bud 16V-747 was built in 1977 in Havre, near Montana. It is still considered one of the largest agricultural tractors in the world. Originally equipped with a 1000 horsepower engine, it weighs close to 50 tons. And with its huge, custom-made wheels, it was able to pull wide cultivators and deep-digging ploughs over vast fields. The machine’s history includes being housed in museums and eventually being put to work again and again. Here again, it is only important that it is properly maintained so that it can enjoy the open air for many years to come.

King of the harvester

To increase harvesting performance, the size and tank capacity of the harvester is also constantly increasing. When the New Holland CR10.90 was launched, it was still the largest combine harvester in Europe. It had an engine with almost 700 hp and a seed tank with tens of thousands of litres of fuel, enabling it to keep the harvest going for hours without having to empty it frequently.

The CLAAS Lexion 8900 family, with its extreme grab and large seed hopper system, is capable of similar feats, making it one of the giants of agriculture. Some of their versions are characterised by tanks of several thousand litres and huge cutterbars. So these machines are not only powerful, they are also really big, not to mention precision farming tools thanks to their electronics and automatic systems.

The wonder machines for harvesting sugar beet

Beet harvesters are in a category of their own. Picking, cleaning and storing beet row by row in a single machine requires huge structures. The German HOLMER Terra Dos series and the multi-generation ROPA Panther are machines that get the job done with a complex conveyor structure and a powerful drive system. The continuous operation of these machines makes them almost like mobile processing plants. The latest versions have several hundred horsepower and usually a 4-axis drive. This ensures maximum efficiency while working.

An invention of the Soviets

The Soviet Union’s vast, centralised agricultural economies also needed larger, more robust equipment. The Kirovets K-700 family, which later became the K-701, was a huge machine with a robust undercarriage and a high-torque diesel engine. It was capable of both heavy ground work and work in extreme conditions. Kirovets can still be found working in many countries today, but they also often appear in internet videos from Russian territories.

Why do we need these machines?

One might ask why such huge equipment is needed in agriculture. But the answer is not so simple. In large areas, a wider cutterbar or a larger hopper can significantly reduce downtime, eliminating the need for refuelling and emptying, and thus reducing the cost per hectare. But huge machines are not cheap, and not only to buy, but also to maintain. Special servicing requirements can also be expensive for such a large machine. Of course, there are many large farms where a simple tractor or a small combine is not enough, but where much more is needed.

So these agricultural machines are in fact the pinnacle of engineering. They show what today’s technology is capable of, how these machines can be developed to maximise performance.