Fairfield Farms is investing in two New Holland CR11 next generation combines to do the work of three existing machines on its large Canterbury grain and seed operation.
After trialling the CR11 alongside its current CR10.90 combines in a wet, stop‑start harvest, the business confirmed it will upgrade to the new model from 2026.
Based just north of Ashburton on New Zealand’s Canterbury Plains, Fairfield Farms has been operating for six years and farms around 4,050 hectares, including roughly 2,200 hectares in arable production.
Its core business is grain and seed, particularly grass seed, followed by grain, brassica and clover seed, alongside processed vegetables and beef finishing.
The 2025 harvest put Fairfield Farms under pressure, with repeated rain leaving only a few short harvest windows.
Managing Director Aaron Chudleigh spent his time in the paddock personally trialling the CR11 in heavy, high‑value pickup crops to see how it performed when conditions were at their toughest.
Across key crops he recorded the CR11 delivering around 1.7 times the capacity in wheat, 1.9 times in clover and up to 2.2 times in grass seed, while maintaining a clean sample and low losses.
“The biggest gains for us have been in the pickup work,” Aaron said.
“Around 60 to 65 percent of our harvest is lifting windrowed grass, brassica and other small seeds, so I was really focused on how the CR11 coped with those heavy, high‑value crops on large pickup fronts.
“With the CR11 we can pick up two windrow rows at our normal harvesting speed, and in grass seed it’s basically doing the work of three machines,” he said.
“In a wet season like this one every extra minute counts. There were times when the CR11 could go out 30 to 60 minutes earlier in marginal conditions, pick up two rows and still do a tidy job, which was the difference between getting a paddock done before the next rain or not.”
Beyond raw capacity, Aaron pointed to the CR11’s updated design as an important part of its value to Fairfield Farms.
“The direct drive is a big step forward,” he said. “They’ve gone away from a lot of belts and pulleys, so you’re not losing horsepower or torque through complicated drives, and from a maintenance and reliability point of view that’s a major upgrade for us.”
Cochranes, a 75‑year family-founded agricultural machinery dealership and the largest New Holland dealer in New Zealand’s South Island, worked alongside Fairfield Farms as well as other large-scale growers to trial the new CR11 in demanding small‑seed conditions.
Cochranes Group Sales Manager Barth Landy said Fairfield Farms, with its scale and mix of crops and hybrids, made it the ideal location to push the new combine to its limits in small seeds.
“We trialled the CR11 in some of the toughest small seed conditions, including new variety perennial ryegrass that hasn’t been harvested before, to really test whether the machine is truly fit for purpose, with early results showing the CR11 is performing exceptionally well,” Barth said.
“The scale of small seed production here in New Zealand is larger than almost anywhere else in the world, so these trials were some of the most demanding CR11 small seed tests done to date.
“They’re giving us real‑world data to prove how the machine performs in small seeds and to help validate its potential for large-scale growers across New Zealand, and globally,” he said.