Building on the reliability and popularity of its 8 Series Round Balers, John Deere introduced 12 new models of its 9 Series Round Balers for 2013 during the Farm Progress Show last week and farmers were loving them.

“I think they fell in love with all of our balers,” said Laura Cobb, senior marketing representative at John Deere Ottumwa Works. “They’re really liking the new technology that we’re adding to our balers. They’ve really come to adopt to the new technology with row crop items and now on the hay side we’re able to offer them that as well.”

Technology on the new balers includes ISOBus electronics for responsive baler/tractor operation, including GreenStar 3 integration and monitoring and control with 1800, 2600, 2630, and CommandCenter displays. This new ISOBus system enables an industry-exclusive Tractor Baler Automation to make baling easier and allow customers to cover more acres in less time.

“Bigger and beefier” is how Cobb likes to describe some of the components and features of the new balers. “The gull wing doors is one of the first ones – a very differentiated styling. When customers come up that’s the first thing they notice,” she said. “We went with bigger, beefier components to make sure it lasts longer for customers so they can be in the field being productive instead of sitting in the shop trying to get parts fixed.” That includes stronger chains, larger shafts and bearings, and more robust pickups.

Perhaps best of all is easy hook up. “We have an adjustable hitch, but on top of that, with our driveline we made it much easy to put together, so for any customer that’s ever had to put a driveline together, we just saved them a lot of headache,” Laura said.

Listen to my interview with Laura here: [wpaudio url=”http://zimmcomm.biz/farm-progress/fps12-jd-laura.mp3″ text=”John Deere’s Laura Cobb”]

2012 Farm Progress Show Photo Album