In 1988/89, WINTERSTEIGER took two giant steps in the Division Seedmech. The weighing system and plot combine for large-scale plots gave WINTERSTEIGER a breakthrough as world market leader in seed breeding technology – a position it has held to this day. By 2023, 150 plot combines and 110 seeders are being produced every year and delivered to customers in 130 countries.

The weighing system – the "brain" of the plot combine.

With the installation of the MCS weighing system from 1989 onwards, the plot combines were suddenly far superior to the machines from our competitors. Up until this point, the seed samples had to be brought into the laboratory after harvesting and weighed manually.

MCS was an American company that developed the first weighing system for plot combines and installed it in the USA. In Europe, WINTERSTEIGER was the first company that supplied the plot combine with an MCS weighing system. As a partner of WINTERSTEIGER, the seed breeding center in Reichersberg provided different types of grain and supported the development. Our competitors were naturally critical of the weighing system and doubted its accuracy.

Following the bankruptcy of MCS, HarvestMaster, owned by Ron Campbel, supplied the entire weighing system. HarvestMaster had previously only been involved in the product with the PC and software. Today, HarvestMaster is a world leader in weighing systems and continues to develop them exclusively for WINTERSTEIGER.

Big, bigger, biggest.

Another milestone on the way to becoming the world market leader was the development of the large combine "Seedmaster Advance". WINTERSTEIGER solved the demand for plot combines with more power in 1987 with a conventional combine, where a standard Deutz-Fahr M660 was converted into a plot combine with a cutting width of 2.25 m. WINTERSTEIGER subsequently switched to a Sampo basic machine and the combines are today converted by New Holland. The Split NH dual plot combine is being successfully deployed in markets with very large trial plots in particular, such as the USA and Brazil, as well as for harvesting corn.