250,000 CLAAS mowers: customers’ favourite mower enjoys global success.

The Bad Saulgau site recently celebrated an important milestone: the 250,000th mower built by CLAAS rolled off the production line, hot on the heels of the launch of a new generation of CLAAS front mowers featuring a new design and, for FRC models, the optional double roller drive.

CLAAS has been one of the world’s leading suppliers of innovative equipment for professional forage harvesting for several decades and has spearheaded technical progress in this product segment through the introduction of numerous innovations. The 250,000th CLAAS mower – a DISCO 3200 FC – recently rolled off the production line in Bad Saulgau, heralding the launch of a new generation of CLAAS front mowers. “Front mowers play a key role in boosting the productivity and quality of forage harvesting,” says Dirk Röhrich, Global Product Team Manager Greenline. “The very first step from a simple side-mounted mower to the front-rear mower combination with or without conditioner virtually doubled the area output while reducing the number of passes. The next step in the form of a triple mower combination paved the way for enormous increases in quality and productivity. Today, powerful high-horsepower tractors with front PTO are becoming genuinely self-propelled and, especially in combination with our ‘18-to-12’ swathing strategy, enable a high-capacity, professional forage harvesting chain with the focus on quality.”

New features: three front-mounted DISCO series
The new CLAAS front mowers feature striking grey protective covers, perfectly matching the optics of the broad range of rear and large-scale mowers. CLAAS has adapted the familiar double roller drive with scissor gearbox from the DISCO 9700 RC AUTO SWATHER biomass mower for use on the DISCO FRC models with roller conditioner. This performance boost ensures a higher throughput in extremely leafy crops.

CLAAS offers a front mower to suit all requirements across the three series in the latest range – from the DISCO 3150F compact lightweight without conditioner to the DISCO F PROFIL all-rounder with trailed mower bed without conditioner, with tine or roller conditioner and with two-spring or hydraulic ACTIVE FLOAT suspension, right up to the DISCO MOVE with integrated ACTIVE FLOAT suspension and self-regulating hydraulic height control that works independently of the tractor.

All CLAAS DISCO front mowers can be combined with a wide range of DISCO side mowers and large-scale mowers – from the simple front-rear combination with side hitching and centre of gravity suspension to the powerful biomass mower with conditioner and swath grouping. With the ‘18 to 12’ strategy with combined wide spreading and swath grouping by the AUTO SWATHER cross conveyors, an 18 m mowing width can be consolidated into 12 m for the LINER four-rotor swather following on behind. This optimises the process chain for the forage harvester and enables active control of the wilting process.

Innovative and durable: used by customers around the world for over 50 years
The current CLAAS DISCO product range, comprising almost 40 different models with working widths from 2.20 to 10.70 m, is the result of unrivalled, decades-long experience in mower development and production – as well as the experiences of 250,000 customers operating in very wide-ranging conditions. “CLAAS mowers enjoy an excellent reputation among customers the world over,”, says Dirk Röhrich. “Thanks to superb engineering and valuable feedback from thousands of customers, our DISCO mowers are not only remarkably efficient, but renowned for their impressive performance even under difficult conditions, low wear costs and exceptional durability and robustness.”

Since 1996, DISCO disc mowers have been at the forefront of mower design on the international stage, with innovations like the MAX CUT mower bed with wave-shaped profile, the hydropneumatic ACTIVE FLOAT suspension or vector folding. Starting out initially with a working width of 2.60 m, CLAAS was quick to respond to growing demands for large-scale mowers and triple mower combinations, unveiling its first DISCO butterfly mower in 1999. At Agritechnica 2005, CLAAS impressed industry experts with the COUGAR self-propelled mower with a working width of 14.0 m – the widest and most powerful mower on the market at the time, equipped with innovations such as ACTIVE FLOAT suspension and telescopic arms. In 2007, the vertical 90-degree transport folding previously used in rear mowers was superseded by the 120-degree transport position with the centre of gravity shifted inwards. Since 2021, diagonal vector folding in the DISCO 4400 has enabled safe, legal road transport for working widths of 4.20 m, an innovation which was extended in 2021 to the DISCO 1010 with working widths of up to 9.90 m.

The SAFETY LINK module with shear bolts and the angled pivot point on the arms, both introduced in 2002, protect the mower bed and arms from damage on contact with obstacles and large foreign objects. The SAFETY LINK has a predetermined breaking point which isolates the drive shaft from the affected cutting disc, thus preventing more serious damage to the mower bed and adjacent discs, while the angled pivot point on the arms raises the mower not only horizontally, but diagonally away from the danger zone.

For over 15 years, CLAAS DISCO large-scale mowers have been available with AUTO SWATHER swath grouping with cross conveyors. 2023 saw the launch of the flagship DISCO 9700 RC AUTO SWATHER with roller conditioner for highly productive biomass crops yielding over 60 t/ha. Since 2024, DIRECT SWATHER technology combined with a tapered swathing auger has enabled swath grouping to be performed without a conditioner, making it an efficient option for lighter four-cylinder tractors.

Since 2020, the MAX CUT mower bed introduced five years earlier has been standard equipment on all CLAAS mowers – guaranteeing not only a clean cut, clean forage and maximum sward protection, but high capacity paired with high cutting frequency at a reduced PTO speed of only 850 rpm for optimum efficiency. Thanks to ACTIVE FLOAT suspension, MAX CUT has the added benefit of further reducing tractive power requirement and fuel consumption. The innovative mower bed stands for optimum reliability and durability – for instance, it features a bolted, torsionally flexible, construction made from fine-grained steel with a base plate pressed from a single piece, mowing discs equipped with wear-protection rivets to double the service life, and knife holders with a tungsten carbide coating on the underside, something normally seen only in professional tillage implements. In addition, all MAX CUT mower beds are permanently lubricated – reducing maintenance effort and costs.

Other innovative and practical ideas from the CLAAS developers at Bad Saulgau include the knife box for housing new and used blades and the introduction of red-painted disc covers and associated knives, making knife changes easier and much faster.

But it’s not just the ingenious, low-wear engineering that has made DISCO mowers from CLAAS such a firm favourite; it is also their intelligent features. Automatic slope control automatically regulates the ACTIVE FLOAT ground pressure control and the AUTO SWATHER belt speeds when mowing on slopes to ensure optimum swath formation and reduce drift and wear.

CLAAS Saulgau GmbH: state-of-the-art Forage Harvesting Centre of Excellence in the heart of Germany’s largest grassland region.
The global success of CLAAS mowers can be largely attributed to two factors: the innovative strength and the production expertise of employees at the Bad Saulgau site. This Forage Harvesting Centre of Excellence lies in the heart of one or Europe’s largest grassland regions; many of the developers, production managers and production staff here grew up on farms and understand the challenges of forage harvesting inside out. As a result, not only have ground-breaking technical innovations found their way into the products over the decades, but numerous unique production processes have also been introduced which account for the exceptional quality and durability of CLAAS forage harvesting equipment.

CLAAS has already laid the foundations for the future based on more than half a century’s experience of mower development and manufacturing. As part of the ForageGO! project, the group has invested more than 50 million euros in infrastructure and production facilities at the site since 2023. New assembly lines have been installed for VOLTO tedders and the JAGUAR crop flow to create space for growth, especially in the mowers and swathers area. A new logistics centre with a total floor area of 9,500 ² is currently under construction, with all works scheduled for completion by late summer 2025