Horsch Express 3 KR power harrow drill: Heavyweight in the ring
Over the years, power harrow drill combinations have put on a fair bit of weight, thanks to much beefier headstocks, larger hoppers, bigger packers, disc coulters…. the list goes on. And the Express 3 KR is no exception. Indeed, when it landed in the yard, Horsch pointed out that we would need more lift capacity than that on offer from the 120hp tractor on hand, and that 150hp should be seen as the lower limit. A quick trip to the weighbridge backed up these words of wisdom, because even with an empty hopper this 3.0m power harrow drill comes in at 3,670kg. That's a lot of metal, although the Express is not alone in scaling at this sort of weight.
Metal needs lift
Complete with a 600mm wedge ring packer, the harrow accounts for 2.1t of the overall figure. The elaborately shaped seed hopper is fabricated from 4mm steel for the front and back, stepping up to 6mm at the sides and mountings. The task of sticking the seed in the ground is left to the familiar TurboDisc 3 disc coulters.
We were using a 200hp Claas Axion 820 with a 1.4t press hanging on the front, which didn’t bat an eyelid when lifting the 5.1t combi with a filled hopper. But this does then exceed the maximum permissible rear axle load of 10t by a substantial 2.0t.
A 150hp tractor could only lift the Express with a partially filled hopper, and it started to struggle
