Spelle in February 2015. Krone Swadro TS 680 Twin with Lift tines produces significantly fewer losses than the predecessor models that use tines which are dragged along behind the arms. This is the finding of a test recently published by the German DLG agricultural society. DLG tested the tines in a first cut in 2014. In a first test run, Swadro TS 680 Twin raked a flat and approximately 12ha rye grass field, with work height set to about 3cm and working at a rate of 8km/h. In this first run, Swadro TS 680 Twin produced extremely low losses of just 0.6%, which compares to 1.5% as produced by its predecessor with dragging tines. Rakes became even cleaner when the work rate increased to 10km/h (and 10.5km/h). At these speeds, the benefit of the crooked Lift tines became even more evident, with losses dropping to a neglectable 0.7%. On the whole, crop contamination levels never exceeded 0.3% in all test runs, which is an extremely low percentage. In a second test run, the work height was set to 4cm. In this configuration, the machine produced slightly higher losses of 0.9% (at 8 km/h) and 1.5% (at 10.5 km/h). Summary: Swadro TS 680 Twin with new Lift tines significantly reduces losses over its predecessor; on top of this, the new tines are less responsive to an increase in the work rate. This reduction in crop loss leads to a nominal increase in milk yields by up to 100 litres per hectare. As another benefit, Swadro TS 680 Twin offers the option of increasing the tines’ working height by 1cm to cope with particularly difficult conditions and still maintain a low loss rate. This is the link to the full test report:

  DLG Test – Forage contamination and raking losses in grass silage