Gav836

Not just the mud Tris..........

As per the title, I could do with some info from a member in this area of Kent (Tenterden, Rolvenden, Smallhythe), not going to post the reason why in public though but no one is in trouble or going to get a visit from "The Boys"

That was under my insistance after he got stuck the first time although this time we had to drag him backwards due to there being a large wet patch just to the front of where he's sitting. People are struggling here too at the moment but no where near as much as up your way. Centre section was fine amazingly, his pride has taken a battering as there's a certain two employs with evil senses of humour who keep winding him up about it

Exactly but he just can't realise that as he's in a dream world some of the time. He has a light load on the trailer, its not even half full as the back of the trailer is empty. We have about 20 acres left to do now so around 4 days but its a race against the weather now.

Deep enough for the tractor and trailer drawbar to be bottomed out thats the problem Paul

After not lifting any potatoes since last Friday we tried to do a couple of loads this afternoon, the same driver as last time however managed to get himself bogged down again and we had to tug him out backwards this time. He reckons he can't watch to see if he is starting to spin out as he has to much to watch with the elevator in the trailer as it is.......patience is wearing thin.....very thin with him, its like talking to a brick wall telling him what to do/how to do something properly and I've given up now before I make myself ill again like I did with last years student >

Work....getting fed up going round behind somene fixing their breakages and sorting out his mishaps. He has no interest in working on the farm, just there for the money, not listening to what he's told and suffering from a lack of common sense. Things are going to come to a head soon, either the other 3 of us are going to walk out or one of my workmates is going to knock him on his ass >

Luckily he's the main person who uses it so all the damage to it other than the boom is down to him as well. I've not been on it since March 2010, not to unhappy about that either. Its now had a new ram and a new boom section under warranty, we thing that the reason the boom bent instead of the ram on the left hand side is down to the fact that he done a similar trick on a hedge back in the spring when spraying headlands and bent that ram so the local hydraulic firm made up a new rod for it, we're sure that its of a higher grade rod than standard hence the boom bending first before the ram did.

Talking of the boss and the sprayer.........he found out what happens when you forget to fold the booms up and try to drive past a straw stack when leaving the field I've also outgrown my existing tool box so when I saw Halfords had an offer on where if you bought the 5 drawer roller cabinet then you got the 7 drawer top chest for £14, I already had the mid section so seemed a good time to update

Still trying to lift potatoes as and when the weather conditions allow us, our young trailer driver had a slight incident Friday though....... He'd already nearly got stuck once through just sitting beside the harvester with all four wheels spinning until I "advised" him via cb to put his foot on the clutch This is what happens when the boss misses a strip with the sprayer as well.....

Sounds like you have a load of jumped up jobsworths there Sean, our regular Postman here is as good as gold, he'll either leave stuff in a safe place here or take it down the yard at work and leave it in my truck, even signing for recorded items. His young relief is not so clever and will return stuff to the depot 6 miles away rather than leaving them in the safe place

UH Bauer E21 irrigator

Nothing wrong with good quality remoulds and the Insa ones are the best out there meeting all the required standards. Avoid Bridgestone 4x4 tyres though as they are very soft and wear quickly.

I'd consider looking at something like the General Grabber All Terrain tyre, They're cheaper than the Goodrich alternative and just as good. I have a set of the AT2's on my Discovery and have been very happy with them, no problems in the ice, snow, rain or mud so far with them. Alternatively if you aren't doing a lot of miles take a look at the Insa Turbo range of tyres, they are remoulds but very good quality, the Traction Track is a direct repacement for the old and well respected Goodrich Track Edge.

What size tyres do you have fitted to it Chris and what sort of miles and driving (% on/off road) are you doing over the course of the year? Will help to narrow down the choices.

Just a couple from today showing just what I'm pushing through the harvester at the moment, soil is still very wet so doesn't drop through the webs very easily but at least I can carry it right through the machine to try and prevent tuber bruising.

We have a very sick JD 6910 at work, its been breathing heavily for the past couple of days then it boiled up on the last load of potatoes of the day today, its looking like the head gasket may have gone........I know, shock horror, a JD head gasket going.....NOT!!!!

I wish we were on light land! The field we're on at the moment isn't at all light land, when its dry its good going but when its wet its an absolute pig, I've only just managed to get up to a decent speed after the 29mm of rain that fell through Sunday night and Monday. Yesterday my boss was on the harvester while I was at a family funeral and he barely got above 1-1.5kph, by the time I finished tonight I was up to 3.8kph. Alot of the time I'm carrying soil right the way through to the end of the cleaner table at the moment, its taking the full length of the machine to get rid of it. I do know that we need a bruising score of 15 or less ideally, yesterday's was 20, but my boss isn't even sure how its worked out, no-one else other than Spearhead seem to either!

The grader gets rid of most of the clod and soil via the star cleaners or the 4 Bulgarians manning it, the crop in the trailers is fairly cloddy. The harvester does a good job at getting the haulm and a lot of the soil out through the XS cleaner and roller table. I'm unsure of the damage points system as I don't have much to do with that end of it, just the harvester operation.

Here's a few pictures of our grading and store filling operation. The grader is sporting a new shelter on it that was built mostly by myself after the original tarpaulin split and was uneconomic to repair. Yields are down this year Sean, size isn't as good either, lots of little ones this year

Well we started potato harvesting on Saturday (why wait until a Monday in my bosses opinion!!)and got rained off on Sunday, we've now had 29mm of rain so I planned on having a days holiday today. All sounded good until I got a phone call last night saying "I think it will go tomorrow, can you come and try it" well I've tried it and after nearly getting stuck with the harvester (with 4wd, diff lock and harvester wheel drive running at the limit) we decided it had better be left!! Pictures from this morning

Only from a collectors point of view, some Wiking tractors will have been bought as toys though so it just adds to the play factor of them if other companies implements will fit. I'd hate to be a model manufacturer as you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't, people complain that their hitches aren't compatible with other companies then when they come up with a solution, all be it not perfect for collectors, then they still are in the wrong

As good as it always is, not a signal of quieter times for us, just a brief break between harvests here. The white tent is the canopy on the potato grader Yes one of the farms is ours, the other is a neighbouring grower. Its a system that works well on our land and we get less slug problems from ploughing than we would do with min till, its still quite a common practice to do it that way around here.

We are now creep feeding this years calves as well ready for weaning and the cows are having straw ad-lib as well. We had a local engineering firm buils us a creep feed gate to fit in the barn doorway last year so we could use the feed bins in there instead of having to buy more mobile units