- When people get in the cab,
they really say a lot of times,
man, I can't believe how smooth this is,
it's way better than my tractor.
I'm Kent Thompson,
R&D Manager for Forage Innovations.
I've been at Vermeer for 20 years.
 
Really didn't start working
until September of 2015,
started building a prototype then.
Actually had it built before Christmas
or right at Christmas.
Right before we went home,
then we really started
testing it that next year.
 
I'm a big zero-turn lawnmower fan.
I've had one for over 15-years,
you know, instantly you get
almost half your time reduced
when you switch to that type of device.
So baling and mowing a yard
aren't significantly different,
you're still following a
path, making tight corners
and trying to follow
quote quote a windrow.
So kind of put those two and two together
and ultimately started
kind of developing that
into a baler
and that's where it started.
 
The self-propelled baler basically works
like a traditional baler, a
tractor baler combination
except that it's much more maneuverable
and we have much less steps in the cab.
And a much smoother
ride obviously as well.
So when you're going through
the fields, you start baling,
when you get a full bale,
the machine stops automatically.
It will actually start putting
the net wrap automatically.
It'll rotate quarter
turn if you want it to.
It will open the tailgate
and let the bale out, shut the tailgate,
rotate back in
and wait for you to hit
one button to go again.
So that's all you have to do in the cab
is to hit one button per bale.
 
I guess I hope in the future that the ZR5,
you know, can have an
impact in the industry
like the round baler did in
1971 one with Gary Vermeer.
You know help with labor
in the market out there,
same problem they're having today
is trying to find people to work.
And this machine makes it easier
to get anybody in the cab and run in it,
highly automated and simple to use.
And you can run longer in
the field to be quite honest,
so hopefully that's our
impact with this machine.
 
