New world record for mowing: But who, where and how fast?

With a Disco 1100 RC mower-conditioner, Claas claims to have set a new world record for the amount mowed in eight hours.

During this time-frame, the machine (with a roller-type conditioner) mowed a total of 141.1ha (348.7ac) of alfalfa. The crop apparently yielded (on average) 5.24t of dry mass per hectare.

According to Claas, the previous world record was thus surpassed by more than 40ha (99ac).

The day’s events

On July 1, just after midday, Tate Mesbergen from Mesbergen Farms of Colorado (US) set about creating the new world record.

He was driving a Claas Axion 880 tractor (with the Claas Disco 1100 RC attached).

Exactly eight hours later, he climbed out of the cab. Claas says that a support team (pictured below), along with “impartial witnesses”, can confirm that Tate mowed a total of 141.1ha in four different fields – thus exceeding the previous world record by more than 40ha.

With a maximum speed of up to 30kph in the field (and over 50kph when moving from field to field), Tate supposedly mowed an average of 17.6ha/hour (43.5ac/hour).

“Not all fields were close to one another, so it was a real challenge to quickly fold up the mower units for transport and hurry along the roads,” he explained.

The day before the attempt, there was a thunderstorm (with heavy showers resulting in 12.7mm of rain). This meant that the subsoil in the first field was wetter than usual. Hence, the start was delayed by a few hours.

During his record attempt, Tate also made two unplanned stops. His first was between the first and second field.

“I hit a piece of concrete in the first field and had to check whether the mower unit was damaged,” he explained. “A quick examination showed that no harm was done. Not one blade had to be replaced.”

The second interruption was needed to check that the mower units were correctly folded, before being moved to the last field.