Indholdsfortegnelse for July 2024 i Profi

Knowing good people can make such a big difference to your life. In this job, a knowledge of who can answer a key technical question, or who has a good relationship with their customers and thinks they might have an interesting story to tell, helps things run that little bit more smoothly at profi — farming is, after all, still a people business. Usually, the level of knowledge that a product specialist and others involved in the machinery trade has, simply takes time to learn. And after 20 plus years writing about machinery, I have been fortunate enough to meet a lot of those people, who on the whole are generally good eggs. Sadly, however, over the past month or so, a number of these industry stalwarts have announced their…

Slotting in between the fewer-frills M6 Utility and the long-serving M7, the M6-002 tractors offer a mix of spec, from mechanical spools to a 40km/hr transmission. If you want/need 50km/hr and electrics, this is where the Kubota dealer will point you in the direction of the M7. It’s also very much an inhouse development, manufactured in Japan and using Kubota’s own hardware. Sales so far in the UK have largely been to family farms, and there are also inroads being made in the grounds-care sector for those wanting a bit more weight, lift capacity and comfort. So, without further ado, let’s meet our test candidate. Over six-litre displacement for 133hp Like the vast majority of the components in the M6, the engine is Kubota’s own motor. In this case it’s…

Mechanical weeding is becoming a necessity for vegetable growers as the list of allowable chemistry becomes ever shorter. Sometimes, manual weeding within the planted crop rows is required, but then not all growers can afford camera-guided systems where the weed destroying rotors are automatically controlled with a nifty AI image-comparing system so the crop isn't harmed. Manual tool control One cost-effective alternative is the Zusa rotary hoe from Polish manufacturer Jagoda. The standard version of the three-row Zusa 3 is no more than €12,800. With an unladen weight of around 800kg, the fully mounted machine is light enough to be hitched to an older tractor, although you do have to bear in mind the weight of the three people who need to manoeuvre the weeding units. The Zusa 3 has…

The ubiquitous pressure washer is typically one of those reliable bits of kit that is only given attention when something goes wrong. With a little bit of care, breakdowns can be avoided and the service life of a pressure washer can be extended. A well-maintained pressure washer is less likely to let you down when you need it most. To get an idea of what to look for we visited pressure cleaner manufacturer Meier-Brakenberg in Germany to pick up some inspection and maintenance tips from the company’s service engineer Dirk Grenner. The company’s professional pressure washers are typically easy to maintain with easy access to key components. More mass market designs may be less easy to look after and be fitted with components that are designed to be replaced as…

Hertfordshire farmers A T Bone & Sons are no strangers to adapting equipment to suit their needs. The latest is a pair of ex-military MAN lorries which, now working as a bowser and crane lorry, and have proven to be indispensable to this highly professional diversified agri-business. The A T Bone & Sons story begun in the late 1950s with Alan Bone’s mixed farm near Ware in Hertfordshire, and two decades later the dairy cows were sold to fund a move to a larger arable farm closer to London. In the late 1980s Alan’s sons Russell and Daniel joined the business, and early expansion involved the acquisition of a contract spraying business. Although contract crop spraying finished in the early 2000s, a pair of Toyota Hilux pickups had also carried…

Will Murphy set up his own baling business in 2017, hiring a Krone 1290 High Speed big square baler. Today he owns one Gen V 1290 and one high density eight-string HDP2 as he continues to look at ways of packing as much material into each bale as possible. “Before Brexit we had a lucrative contract to export straw to the Netherlands, seeing £20 per tonne more than our other contract for OSR straw and long straw-walker wheat straw. The HDP2 was brilliant for this, as we could make 600kg bales consistently and load a tautliner to a good weight (over 18t); they only hold 30 bales, so heavy bales were key.” Since the EU market fell off the menu for easy export, Will has been concentrating on his power…

Belarusian manufacturer Amkodor is testing a number of articulated tractor prototypes from 330hp to around 500hp. Better known in its homeland for its construction and forestry machines, the Minsk-based company also makes mixer wagons, mowers, telehandlers and grain driers. Now it has a project to develop a range of articulated tractors. The first, the 330hp 5300, broke cover as long ago as 2017. The 8.0l six-pot Stage II turbocharged common rail block in the 16t tractor was supplied by the Minsk Motor Plant (MMZ) and the top speed of the 16fx2r powershift was 37km/hr. Standing on 710/70R42 tyres, the 980l fuel tank was said to provide enough capacity for 10 hours of operation. Following a couple of years of testing, it was expected that Amkodor would start making the first…

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Looking to expand its mechanical weed control line beyond the former Steketee products, Lemken has developed the Thulit, the firm’s first pressure harrow. It will be built at the new Crop Care factory in Dintelood in the Netherlands. When developing the new harrow range, the engineers wanted to avoid using the familiar combination of springs and cables, like others do, to control the tine pressure across the peaks and troughs. Instead, it has come up with a completely new and unique system using hydraulic pressure to control the tines, and accumulators to maintain an even load on all of the tines. It is similar to the approach used on the firm’s drill for setting the coulter pressure. Each tine is connected to a piston via a metal rod. These pistons…

While you could be forgiven for thinking finger-bar mowers went out with the ark (or at least with grandad’s MF 35X), they’re actually making something of a comeback, albeit in a very different role. With more and more farms running their own diggers, there are increasing numbers of ag-specific attachments making their way onto the market to stretch these already versatile machines’ portfolios. Flail-head hedge-bashers have gained some popularity but unless you’ve got a big, modern 360 to run them they can suffer from oil-flow issues when other functions are operated. With a much lower appetite for oil, finger-bar trimmers offer a useful alternative where access means it’s not possible to get a tractor and reach-arm flail in or simply where you want to be a bit more gentle on…

A good sprayer operator will have no problem flicking on and off sections to treat patches of weeds with a herbicide. But doing this for any length of time will soon become laborious, and the chances are that you will have to slow your forward speed to be able to be able to reliably tap the required button on the touchscreen or switch on the control box and even then there will be as many misses as hits. The advantage of accurate weed spot spraying is well established as clearly only treating areas infested with weeds will save herbicide and money. It can also help the agricultural sector cut chemical use and with it meet ever stringent environmental targets. The solutions There are a couple of ways in which targeted…

Although tramline widths in the UK are mostly 24m or 36m for cereal and root crops, the Dutch like to go bigger, and that includes spreading solid fertiliser. In the polder area north of Groningen, 45m has become the standard width for potato and beet crops. We visited one such farm where manager Klaas Nienhuis shared his experiences. Potatoes and beetroot Located on the North Sea coastline, about one third of the 155ha polder farm is dedicated to potatoes and a further 23ha to sugar beet. Because of these crops, Klaus switched to 45m tramlines seven years ago. The average field size is around 10ha, the largest measuring 22ha. As soils can vary greatly in the polder area, Klaas usually divides up the fields into smaller plots. Some of the…

Dairy farmers across the land have spent the past six months patiently waiting for all the arks to finally run aground as the flood waters recede. Spreading slurry on waterlogged land is not only a big regulatory no-no due to run-off, but few farmers would even want to try due to the potential for soil damage. Those lucky enough to have access to umbilical systems and some fat tyres have been able to keep storage levels somewhat under control and apply this fertiliser in timely fashion. Others, especially those whose slurry cannot be pumped, have had a fight on their hands just to keep the brown tide at bay. A customer of mine happens to be one such fellow, bestowed with thick slurry and peaty land. Naturally, I had been…

DRIVING IMPRESSION Weaving Rota Strip Weaving Machinery is the latest to explore strip-till cultivation, saying it shows promise as part of a more sustainable establishment regime for crops such as maize. Our test team studies the Rota Strip and reviews some of the other systems on the market. REPORT N D Harper Why a bespoke hire agreement is working well for Cheshire contractor N D Harper in helping to control the firm’s running costs. USED MACHINERY Case IH Puma long-wheelbase models Case IH Puma long-wheelbase models Case IH LWB Puma tractors have undergone a number of upgrades and facelifts since the first units entered production back in 2007, with market developments in the interim now making the CVX stepless transmission models in the 200hp plus power bracket the most sought-after…

The acquisition of Brazilian fertiliser spreader manufacturer MP Agro is part of a plan by the Amazone Group to further internationalise its business and grow in South America. With an extensive dealer network across Brazil, MP Agro Máquinas Agrícolas, as it is officially known, was founded in 2012 in Ibaté (São Paulo state). The first machine was the Z-Line, a demount system that transforms a self-propelled sprayer (includes certain Case IH, John Deere and Massey Ferguson models) to a fertiliser spreader (4.0-6.0m³). Today, the firm’s stainless steel spreader ranges include the Taurus, Nidus and Robust twin-axle trailed models with capacities from 6.0-15m³. There is also a truck version of the Taurus. The Amazone Group’s acquisition of the Brazilian manufacturer is subject to official approval. MP Agro’s existing workforce will remain…

CANADIAN TRACTOR MARKET New tractor registrations fell by over 22% in Canada in the first three months of this year to 4,054 units (5,236 in Q1, 2023). All power categories were affected with registrations down a quarter for 40-100hp tractors and 16% in the min for 100hp+ versions. 5.0% fewer new combine harvesters were also registered from January to March, down from 405 units in Q1 2023 to 384 units this year. BKT TYRE EXCEEDS ON THE ROAD Designed for road going trailers and slurry tankers, BKT says that the Powertrailer SR 331 all steel radial exceeds its expectations in terms of its road performance. The all-steel construction is said to result in good performance even with heavy loads and the sidewall rib helps to protect the rubber against impacts.…

Pöttinger has added three new functions to its Harvest Assist app. The first allows the baler operator to enter the number of bales made in each field. This allows drivers of the collection vehicles to see how many need to be collected. If there are several bale collection teams, each driver knows immediately which fields they still need to visit and how many bales have already been removed. The second new function is for navigating to the clamp. In addition to providing navigation to the field, the navigation function also shows the route back to the clamp. A new one can be added and navigated to directly using Google Maps, eliminating the need to send locations. The third new function is the ‘Other machines’ category where bale collection machinery and…

EUROPEAN TRACTOR MARKET 2022/2023 TOP THREE SPOTS: 1. Austria 1. Steyr 2. John Deere 3. New Holland 2. Belgium 1. John Deere 2. New Holland 3. Fendt 3. Bulgaria 1. John Deere 2. Kubota 3. New Holland 4. Croatia 1. John Deere 2. Lamborghini 3. Claas 5 Czech Republic 1. John Deere 2. Solis 3. Case IH 6. Denmark 1. John Deere 2. Case IH 3. New Holland 7. Finland 1. Valtra 2. New Holland 3. John Deere 8. France 1. John Deere 2. New Holland 3. Fendt 9. Germany 1. Fendt 2. John Deere 3. Deutz-Fahr 10. Hungary 1. John Deere 2. Solis 3. New Holland 12. Italy 1. New Holland 2. John Deere 3. Antonio Carraro 13. Lithuania 1. John Deere 2. Valtra 3. Claas 14. Netherlands 1.…

New Holland once offered two combine threshing systems, high-capacity rotor CR models and the straw-walker based CX and TC. With its ‘Crossover Harvesting’ CH7.70, that will be now entering its fourth season, this now established ‘third’ choice mixes a traditional drum and concave with beater rotor up front with twin rotors taking over the role of straw walkers. Built round thesamerunninggear as a CX6.90 walker machine, the 374hp CH7.70 is the sole ‘hybrid’ variant. We got a chance for an extended drive last harvest. Wide 1.56m drum and concave New Holland CH combines are built alongside CX5 and CX6 models in the former Bizon factory in Plock, Poland. Sharing the same 1.56m wide, 60cm diameter drum as those models, GermanspecificationCH7.70models have straight rasp bar drums as standard, while the UltraFlow…

Just as there are many ways to skin a cat, there are many ways to direct drill a crop. French firm Novag relies on a system that comprises a disc opener with coulter shoes on either side, like an inverted T. Among other things, this coulter arrangement counteracts hair-pinning, where organic material is pushed into the furrow created by the disc and prevents the seed achieving adequate soil contact. We were in the field with a T-Force Plus 450CT. The T-Force Plus is Novag’s only drill range to date, with the ‘4’ indicating the working width of 4.0 metres and the ‘50’ standing for the current fifth generation. The ‘CT’, in turn, is a reference to controlled traffic, which means that the working width is actually 4.50m to fit in…

When launched in January 2005, the ‘new’ Commander shared little with the previous Hardi trailed sprayers apart from the same name. There was a lot of emphasis placed on stability, with the low-slung profile tank and steering axle being some of the bigger changes. In fact, at the unveiling in Denmark the press were challenged to see if we could get it to ‘cock a leg’, but none of us managed to achieve this feat. It is a design that has proved itself, so much so that the current Commander looks very similar until you starting opening panels to see the extra technology that has found its way onto the sprayer over the intervening years. Initially there were just two tank sizes: 3,200 and 4,400 litres and the 6600 one…

The Puma is the popular powerhouse in the Case IH range, the long- and short-wheelbase models being the best sellers for the red marque. These are also available from the other CNH brands: the Steyr is almost identical bar a change of colour, while New Holland also has a different control layout to make it more distinguishable. Although we don’t see them here, the Puma is also sold as a lower spec X model. The powershift Multicontroller is where we get introduced to today’s current Puma, which is topped off with the CVX model with its CVT box. Although the 6.7-litre motor itself has stayed relatively unaltered, the pack has been adorned with the necessary exhaust emission paraphernalia and a turbo technology change. Nonetheless the 15-year-old model remains a versatile…

SPRAYERS Syngenta’s Sprays and Sprayers arena has a working demonstration at its heart with leading manufacturers of sprayers, components and accessories surrounding it. The event also plays host to the Farm Sprayer Operator of the Year presentation. Amazone Pantera goes to 7000 litres Amazone will show the 7,000-litre version of its Pantera sprayer for the first time in the UK. The largest machine in the firm’s self-propelled range, it is available in boom widths up to 48m and comes with a new chassis system that self-levels on slopes and offers the ability to adjust the front and rear axle track widths independently. Unladen weight is under 12 tonnes with weight distribution maintaining a 50:50 split between the two axles. Although based on the wet system of the smaller 4504, the…