TONUTTI displayed its new GR Pro Series rotary rake, with sizes ranging from 11 ft., 6 in., to 14 ft., 9 in. The heavy-duty rakes are designed for work in difficult conditions, and feature a spiral cam-designed gearbox and redesigned height adjustment system. Tonutti also introduced its new GTH 780 3PS Pro hay tedder line. Thomas Reising says Tonutti’s transition to selling equipment directly through dealers, instead of distributors, is nearly completed and there’s good potential in North America for the company’s products. The company also believes its Wolagri line of balers and harvesting equipment has potential in the U.S. and Canada. “We want to have good penetration into the market with our whole line,” Reising says. But he added some cautionary words: “We don’t expect the pre-season sales that we had last year. We’ll sell most of our equipment during the season. With the credit situation, I am concerned about our dealers. I don’t know how long they can survive that.”

KRONE N.A. displayed a special silver-and-black version of its Big X1000 mower/conditioner. The Big X, released in North America in 2007, was paired at the show with Krone’s 1053 14-row corn header, which folds in half.

Krone had a huge display of equipment at Agritechnica and product manager Hartwig Jansenn discussed the company’s desire to increase Krone’s market share in North America.

Krone has opened a North American headquarters in Reno, Nev., and more than dozen North American Krone dealers were hosted by the company at Agritechnica, which has an estimated 350 dealers in the U.S. and Canada.

“Hay and forage is important to us in Idaho, Oregon and Washington, where the number of square bales sold is significant,” says Jansenn.

“Reno is an ideal location to do dealer training, host customer events and hold dealer meetings.”