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Efficiently powering the world’s largest woodchipper

Powering a woodchipper capable of taking in hardwood timber up to 132cm in diameter takes some doing, but as the Cotswold Group has found it's a job well suited to the XERION 5000.

HarvesTimes Spring 2024

In addition to general tree surgery and forestry work, a major part of the Cotswold Group's business is chipping some 15,000 tonnes of timber and 15,000 of whole tree chip for use in biomass boilers on chicken farms.

Looking to increase his chipping capacity 18 months ago,

Rupert Arneil opted to 'go big', investing in a Mus-Max W12 which, with a feed opening measuring 90×135cm, is the largest tractor powered woodchipper in the world.

With a power requirement of up to 600hp, this limited his choice of tractor to just two, of which he chose the XERION 5000 VC on account of the operating position provided by its reversible cab.

"The Mus-Max is a beast of a machine and it needs all of the 530 horsepower from the XERION," states Rupert. "It will fill a lorry in 20 minutes, compared to nearly 50 minutes with our old chipper. In just 18 months the XERION, which we bought ex-demo from CLAAS WESTERN at 300 hours, has already clocked up 3,600 hours."

Behind the controls for most of those hours has been operator lan Smith, who agrees that one of the best features about the XERION is the reversible cab, but also its power and especially the torque.

"When its reversed, the visibility from the cab over the feed table and the chipper as a whole is brilliant. The fact that you have the foot pedals and all your controls readily to hand makes it so relaxing to operate and when you are sat there chipping it is really comfortable.

"But the torque (2,600Nm) is also unreal. When you load a big log it will pull the engine down, but it then just holds on and keeps pulling. Considering that the XERION is powering everything and I have the PTO speed set to exactly 1000rpm with the engine running at about 1,700pm, the fuel consumption is extremely good and the AdBlue is fantastic - one fill will last me a week and at least three or four tanks of fuel.

"I have it set up so that the feed into the chipper will vary according to the engine revs, so as to keep the speed as constant as possible. Output, depending on the grade of chip, is between 50 to 70 tonnes an hour but the XERION engine is working constantly at a high load. The job is brutal because unlike an agricultural machine where the load is fairly constant, with the chipper the power load is always surging, which has to be hard on the engine. Despite that the reliability has been extremely good and whenever we have needed them, the support from CLAAS WESTERN has been excellent."