Gav836

Smashing the windscreen in the 6910 after a stone flew up from the haulm topper on my tractor. Been waiting for it to happen on this stoney field, already taken a window out on the 6810 this year as well!

Yeah, its taken me a few days to get used to the new machines traits but now I've got its measure we're getting on well. Boss said to me yesterday about 14 acres of ploughing that needs doing and wondered if I'd do it with the 6910 while he got on the harvester.........not a chance of that happening so someone else will have to do it which was the other option. I don't let anyone else use the harvester if I can avoid it (would need to be at deaths door for that to happen), its very much a one operator machine to be able to get the most out of it.

The XS cleaner table is the weak point in the harvester Marky, if I try to push too much wet soil over it it will stop dead but luckily it has a reverser on it so I just have to flick the lever and it clears itself, drier soil is less of a problem. As Jez says its usually soil flow thats the limiting factor on speed however trash can play a big part in it too, I finished lifting 25 acres of bindweed infested spuds today and they were a nightmare to get through the machine in places with the weed wrapping around cleaning rollers (its wrecked 2 £70 rollers it wrapped up on) and holding the soil in the machine, when I got a clear patch I could go 1.5kph quicker, doesn't sound much but it adds up over the course of a day.

Thanks John, no more demo's as yet. The Case dealer would like to bring the Puma back to try on the harvester but I'm not so keen really as it would take a while to swap all the controls and monitors over from my tractor No comment on that one at the minute

Cheers John, I was doing about 3.5-4kph when I made the video, much better than the 1.6kph I was travelling at 7 days ago. Hopefully if it keeps dry I hould be able to go quicker still, don't somehow think I'll get up to the 6-7kph I was travelling at in last years dusty conditions though

That alarm sound is actually the hydaulic noise from the tractor as the auto depth operates on the harvester as the entire discharge and digger web lift is powered by the tractor on a load sensing circuit, my camera seems to have really picked it up, I don't notice it now myself in the cab though. Tractor does seem noisey though now after demo'ing others

It certainly is a big improvement over the old one, it handles the rubbish and soil with ease, the old machine would have struggled in the conditions we started lifting in last week

Here's a video from yesterday as well

What a difference a few days can make, its now dried up nicely so we can actually get along at a sensible speed potato harvesting, the amount of bindweed is still causing a problem in one of the fields but we are getting somewhere now. After hitting them hards since Thursday we've managed to clear up most of the Saturna with only 3 trailer loads left to lift now before we do the Crisps 4 All. Here are a few pictures from yesterday, 6810 looks a lot better now it has new tyres on it, it certainly handles better for them. Today has been the first day I've been loading the trailers right up though as the ground is still a bit damp in places

Its probably a 15-18 ton an acre crop which is about average for that variety, tubers are bigger than I've seen for the last two years though so swings and roundabouts really. Variety is Saturna at the minute on contract to Walkers crisps, next up after them is Crisps 4 All (yes thats the varieties spelling, not text talk ) and finally Pentland Dell for McCains. My harvester has powered diablo rollers on the front of it which help to pull the soil up onto the web, I can notice the difference between this one and its predecessor in ability thats for certain. Would be lost without the wheel drive at present thats for certain. What is it you're lifting at the moment?

We've started potato harvesting this week in some wet to very wet conditions that are giving me headaches with the harvester due to the amount of soil hanging in the machine and trailer drivers struggling with the ground conditions. I've taken a few pictures so far on my phone and also a few videos, not posting them individually but they are all on this youtube video, no sound with it on my phone so you'll have to make due with a rather fitting song ;D

Sounds like Oliver Arnolds gang to me Dave, I know he swapped his JD chopper for a Claas this season...........had to keep up with his neighbour after all

After two years of nagging by us my boss has finally given in and ordered a new set of tyres for the 6810 after seeing how much it was struggling in the wet today

Another 13mm of rain last night making potato harvesting impossible this morning and damned hard work this afternoon once it had settled a bit. I nearly got the harvester bogged down and would have done without a powered axle to push it along (even this had wheel spin!), one of my trailer drivers got stuck which took a while to get out with the 6810 being the only available recovery tractor and then to top it off a stone comes out of my haulm topper bounces off something and goes straight through one of the windscreen panels on the 6810

There are a few dairy farms in this area, we do have one as a neighbour but we ourselves run a suckler herd a does our another neighbour. You've not been coming at the right times if you've never seen one working up here I would imagine its for customers to use should they need an extra trailer, they should manage with just three on our crop as its only a stones throw from the clamp. 6930 has been on maize for a while, tyres aren't as narrow as they look surprisingly, we thought they were narrow too until we looked at the sizes.

The trailers, 3 of the four built locally by Bunnings, very high spec with centralised greasing and steering rear axle and the other a newer Richard Western one built just over the border in Suffolk

We had this lot turn up in the yard Saturday night ready to do our 14 acres of maize once it dries up One of the bigger local silage contractors

We know there have been inaccuracies in the past with drilling, we had some serious overlaps last year due to an inexperienced operator and this year due to the way the boss had some of the fields drilled. Getting the joins right on the sugar beet is another area that the gps could help with as at least then we could be sure that there will be no issues with the hoe or sprayer due to narrow joins. The potato beds are fairly accurate when I pull them up but every once in a while I manage to pull a narrow or wide one which is where the problems start, its not easy keeping the beds consistant by centre marking either especially in some of our heavier ground where the marker doesn't mark very well or on a few of the more variable fields about here where the soil pulls the tractor about, all things that auto steer could help with

We know that the GPS will make some savings for us on the potato side of the farm and would certainly make the bedforming task much easier and quicker easing the amount of pressure it puts on myself or the other chap who sometimes does it, it would also make sure all tramlines are put in the right place when spraying them. we are thinking of expanding the potato area next year as well if possible so it will be seriously considered. Potatoes aside it would also make the drilling more accurate saving seed, fertiliser and chemicals in the process. We have spoken to a few local growers who have GPS and they all say its saved them money in the long run. With regards to the sprayer Sean, no we can't fit auto boom control to it or if we could the cost would rule it out anyway, for us to be able to use GPS with the sprayer we would have needed to buy the "i" model. However when it comes up for change in 5 years time we will be looking to do just that as the spraying tractor will also have been changed by then

30mm of rain falling since 7am yesterday morning and its still coming down don't think we'll be starting to harvest potatoes tomorrow somehow

Went into work this morning to finish the overhaul on the potato harvester with the engineer from the dealers, between the two of us we have now spent about 120hrs (60hrs each) on it getting all the repairs done so its now ready to go when it dries out again. Going to spend the rest of the day unwinding after a busy week before visiting the local drinking establishment tonight

It may seem an expensive luxury but even the best driver would not be able to get each bed 100% accurate all the way across the field while bedforming for potatoes by centre marking or wheel marking. A difference of +/- 5cm across 10 beds is the equivelant to a whole sprayer nozzle which, worst case scenario, if its + 5cm or more on the 10 it would mean we then have an untreated strip which could allow blight in hence why we are considering it. Even the best drill men will get over laps and the occassional gap going across a field so it will save money but just takes a couple more years to pay for itself on 1000 acres against 3000 acres. Its one of the things on the shopping list but it may not be best year and certainly wouldn't be for 5-6 years for spraying as the new sprayer isn't set up for it for boom control

I always say if you're not enjoying the job you do for a living then its time for a change, lifes too short to be miserable. For me today it was in work at 8am to remove a wheel motor off the potato harvester with some help......boss disappeared just as it was time to drop the extremely heavy motor off so the wheel barrow is now dented then once that was off went and ploughed the last bit of winter barley ground so I'm free to work on the harvester all week getting that ready to go before leaving off at 2.30pm

Yes the JD is set up correctly and on better tyres although narrower than the Fendt was, the Fendt was also another 20-25 hp as well as was the New Holland back in the spring which also used less diesel than my JD. The Fendt was using 22 litres an hour pulling a 5 leg sub soiler at 16 inches deep in some tight going which I don't think was bad fuel economy at all

Yeah it is but they have offered to bring us a Topcon one out to try should we wish which would be good