A chopper assembly having a discharge conduit. A first and a second beater disposed within the discharge conduit and a first door and a second door in the bottom wall of the discharge conduit positioned below the first beater and the second beater respectively.

A crop processor for cracking kernels in a forage harvester, the crop processor including: a housing having an inlet and an outlet; and a first and a second comminuting roll mounted inside the housing, the comminuting rolls being arranged in parallel to define an opening between the rolls, the comminuting rolls being configured to rotate, during use, in opposing rotation directions to transport a flow of harvested crop, received from the inlet, through the opening towards the outlet, wherein the first comminuting roll is configured to rotate at a greater speed than the second comminuting roll; wherein the first and second comminuting rolls each include a plurality of teeth arranged on a circumferential surface of the comminuting roll, each of the plurality of teeth includes a leading edge which faces in the rotation direction of that comminuting roll.

A header assembly for an agricultural combine harvester includes a plurality of row units, and a plurality of chopper/blower units. Each chopper/blower unit is positioned below a respective row unit and has a discharge outlet. At least two of the chopper/blower units have a discharge chute connected with the discharge outlet, and a deflector positioned at a discharge end of the discharge chute. Each deflector is independently adjustable to direct crop material toward a windrow formed under the combine harvester.

Crop processing rolls for operative use in forage harvesters are disclosed. The crop processing rolls are formed with a plurality of first grooves that are oriented in a parallel manner with second smaller grooves intersecting the ridges to form discrete teeth from the ridges. The ridges can be formed vertically, horizontally or in a spiraled pattern with the smaller second grooves oriented into a spiraled pattern to form the discrete teeth. Crop processing roll segments can be formed in this manner and assembled into full processing rolls with the spiraled second grooves being oriented in opposing directions from adjacent segments. The number of segments can vary from two to eight individual segments with the second grooves breaking ridges into discrete teeth on adjacent segments forming a chevron pattern at intersecting positions along the longitudinal length of the processing roll.

A forage harvester is disclosed including a grain processor for processing of a chopped crop. The grain processor is driven by a belt drive in which an endless belt has a belt tension, an actuator for adjusting the belt tension in the belt drive and a control device for adjusting the actuator. The control device is configured to control the actuator based on input signals supplied to the control device with regard to a property of the crop and a stored relationship between the signal and an associated setting value of the actuator in terms of adapting the belt tension in the belt drive to the property of the crop. The control device is configured to receive the input signals from a sensor that interacts with the crop upstream of the grain processor and/or taken location-specific from a stored map. The actuator is commanded to adjust the belt tension in the belt drive based on the input signals related to the crop being processed.

A self-propelled forage harvester, a method for operating a forage harvester, and computer readable medium to perform the method for operating the forage harvester. The forage harvester includes a cutterhead driven at a variable rotational speed (n.sub.HT) for chopping harvested material, a cracker roller pair with a variable gap width positioned behind the cutterhead on a path of the harvested material through the forage harvester for comminuting grains in the chopped harvested material, and a control unit for controlling the rotational speed and the gap width. The control unit is part of a setting device controlled using a characteristic map, wherein the characteristic map describes or is indicative of a corn silage processing score (CSPS) depending on at least the rotational speed and the gap width.

A kernel processor adjustment system and technique is provided. Material processed by a kernel processor is measured with a sensor assembly having one or more sensors. One or more properties are determined from sensor data and the properties are employed to determine a characteristic of the processed material. The characteristic is evaluated based on a performance metric. Based on the evaluation, adjusted settings of the kernel processor are determined. Control signals for the kernel processor are generated and communicated to execute the setting change.

A drive arrangement of a conditioning apparatus of a forage harvester having two conditioning rollers, with at least one of the conditioning rollers able to be driven at variable speed via an electrical drive train, includes an electric motor/generator for driving the conditioning roller. The electric motor/generator is able to be operated as a generator for braking the conditioning roller and to return the generated electrical energy into a drive system of the forage harvester.

A wear plate assembly for an agricultural harvester including a support element having a number of lateral regions, each lateral region being provided with a plurality of first engagement features, one or more replaceable wear plates provided on one side with a plurality of second engagement features for engagement with the first engagement features, and a plurality of fastenings to secure each replaceable wear plate to the support through the engagement features.

A mobile agricultural machine includes a header configured to engage crop at a worksite and a controllable header actuator configured to drive movement of the header relative to a surface of the worksite. The mobile agricultural machine further includes a crop constituent sensor system configured to sense the crop and generate a crop constituent sensor signal indicative of a value of a constituent of the crop. The mobile agricultural machine further includes a control system configured to generate a control signal to control the mobile agricultural machine based on the detected value of the constituent of the crop.