PRACTICAL TEST: It’s three years since Krone started offering the VariPack Plus round balers with a variable chamber that employs three belts. How are they going?
Having made its debut at Agritechnica, we had an early look at the VariPack variable-chamber belt baler in the 1/2020 issue. This was something of a pivotal moment for Krone, which up until then had relied on chains and slats. Three seasons later, and the VariPack Plus is now firmly part of the Krone furniture. There are two chamber sizes — the V165 Plus (0.80m to 1.65m) and the V190 Plus (0.80m to 1.90m)
— and both of these can also be supplied as XC models, which has either a 17- or 26-knife chopping system. The latter is around £5,000 more than the non-chop machine.
The test machine
For this practical test, Krone provided us with a VariPack V190XC Plus with the 26 knives, which we mainly used in barley and wheat straw as well as hay, and to a lesser extent for haylage and silage.
As this test was caried out by our German colleagues, the test machine had the drawbar mounted in the upper hitch position, but the same piece of beefy metalwork can be pivoted down for use with a lower hitch as operated in the UK and Ireland. A ring end is standard, but there is a £680 K80 spoon option. Overall, the hose and cable routing is good, thanks to a neat rack with slots to hold the coupling and plugs when the machine is parked up. The wide-angle driveshaft is sourced from Walterscheid, with an overload-protected gearbox. The default pto speed is 1,000rpm with the 26-knife option; however, you can reduce the speed to save fuel in light swaths.
We liked the foldable steps on both sides of the machine, so you can reach the net wrap system from the left and right. The foldable parking stand has two crank speeds. Because the stand and steps swing up well out of the way, we didn’t have any issue with the crop getting caught, even in large windrows. All grand stuff so far.
Pick-up and rotor
Krone goes with its familiar EasyFlow camless pick-up, which is protected from overloading with a cam clutch unit. The five rows of tines, arranged in a helical pattern, pick the forage off the ground cleanly, while a spring-loaded crop press roller and adjustable deflector tines provide some initial channelling of the material.
The pick-up pivots in the middle, with around 70mm of movement. This, together with the castor-steered gauge wheels, which can be adjusted without tools, ensures impressive ground tracking, and, conveniently, the gauge wheels can remain attached to the baler for travelling down the road.
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