Gav836

They were all John Deere before I believe, the last one only went in the previous couple of years. Another local farm was an MB Trac farm befor they went JCB, they buy for the dealer not the product though usually.

I can't agree with you there, the early ones weren't the best but for the last 5 years or so they have been a lot better, our neighbour who has somewhere around 1000 acres of potatoes doesn't have a conventional tractor on the farm anymore. He runs a fleet of at least 7 Fastracs, possibly more as I've only ever seen 7 of them in one field at once when potato planting. The steering lock is a lot better on the later ones as are the gearboxes and from what the blokes say they are no more unreliable than any other tractor these days. If the steering lock was still as bad as people make out he certainly wouldn't be able to use them for potato harvesting or destoning with standard size field headlands. These tractors are doing 24 hour shifts at some times of the year and stand up to it well.

I had details of it this morning, expected in 6-8 weeks time and limited edition of 999 pieces.

......only to see them get beaten by the boys from Norfolk :D :D

I would have thought T Cut if its bad followed by a good colour polish.

I'm going back to the late 80's/early 90's when they made a Deutz Fahr trailed one, not the Kemper front mounted one

Hmmmmm 1st of April and 1 hour remaining to do it...........coincidence?

More destoning after sorting out last nights little problem with the machine where it ingested an old plough share which jammed the 4th web and top web together bending a bar on each in the process Started on our last field today as well so getting there now

I usually drive it with the top half of the door open but the bottom half just doesn't make sense. The straightening effort hasn't helped either as it now doesn't shut right and is bending the latch again. It's the second bottom glass he's done in it, I'd like to see how it goes down on the insurance claim

Hearing how my boss managed to break the glass in the bottom section of our JCB's door.....he had it open and caught it on a staunchion in the cow shed bending the hinges in the process. He then proceeded to try to straighten the hinges out by hitting them with a sledge hammer only he missed the hinge and hit the glass instead..... :D

A picture taken in the stoniest part of the field A couple my colleague took of me destoning today

Heres a few planting pictures from today and yesterday

As far as we and several other growers are concerned ploughing for potatoes is a waste of time these days as its more of a recreational activity if you are subsoiling it to 16 inches anyway, you get just as much soil by ridging straight behind the subsoiler. Another plus for not ploughing is the fact that you don't create clods then have to beat the ground into submission with a power harrow or bed tiller to get rid of them saving a lot of diesel and man hours.

Yeah, planter on the back and a bed tiller on the front fitted with a granular pesticide applicator. It mixes it in as its applied for the control of soil borne nematodes

A couple of pictures of planting from 2 years ago for you Barry, outfit is still the same but we have rowcrop wheels on this year. I'll get some more pictures at some point.

Barry if you're going to try and be clever and badger me for photo's take a look in the last two pages and you will find the ones of the fertilser being applied with a sprayer :ha ha!: Will get pictures of everything else as and when I can

We run a Grimme planter at the moment but its had a lot of work in its life. There won't be anything else new bought until April 2013 now, the destoner isn't actually a purchase its on a lease/hire agreement for three years after which time we can either buy it or upgrade it for another new one.

About 150-160 I think from memory Sean, the increase in acreage was one of the deciding factors for changing the destoner to for this one, we couldn't afford any downtime with the old one again with an extra 40 or so acres to get through. I was told today that we will probably be having a new Standen planter out on demo some time in the next month as well, can't have a red machine in our all blue lineup after all 1) Apply suspension fertiliser 2) Subsoil at 16 inches deep 3) Ridge up 4) Destone 5) Plant 6) Spray/Fertilise/Irrigate as required 7) Dessicate tops 8 )Harvest

It just removes them from a 1.5m wide strip or bed in our case to the furrow between them where they are run in by the tractor/destoner wheels on the next pass Paul, you can get a cart elevator for destoners to remove the stones all together but over the course of time it would destroy the soil structure.

There's a really bad stoney patch in that field but I'm too busy with tweaking the destoner in there to take any pictures of it. Buster had the day off today as I had people in and out of the cab with me for half the day. We''ll destone again in 7-8 years time when the field has a crop of spuds on it again by which time the intervening years cultivations will have spread the stones back out across the field

Standens were out with me today to start the new destoner off, so far we're very impressed with it and would estimate that in 6 hours today I've covered the same area of ground that it would have taken 15-18 hours to do with our old machine. My boss has said that he's never seen a destoner going at 5kph before A short video of the Uniweb at work from the drivers seat

Yes Chris 18 inches between rows for us, some people go for 20 inches though depending on their preference. As I let my colleague have a go on my tractor today so he could get used to it before we share it for destoning duties it gave me a chance to get a video of it subsoiling and listen to what everyone else has been hearing while I've been doing it

More subsoiling today once I'd changed the wings on it as they were beyond worn up due to the replacements not turning up in time. Also had to get the ridger mounted up and centralised on the 6910 ready for my colleague to start ridging up tomorrow. Gave the same chap a lesson on my tractor this afternoon and left him subsoiling for a couple of hours while I welded up a set of shins for the subsoiler ready for fitting in the morning and welded up a control box mounting bracket for the desroner, can't afford to have the subsoiler stopped for too long at the moment so seemed the easiest way out.

The steering arm falling apaer on my truck tonight as I turned onto my drive, 30 seconds earlier and I'd have run some idiotic children over that I had to swerve round. Don't they teach kids to walk down the road so they can be seen on blind bends rather than on the side of the road where they may get flattened >