phil phoenix

We finished combining our 2000 acres earlier this week, although I suspect we may be asked to assist with one of the neighbours later ripening crops as September rolls on. My immediate focus has been to complete all the rapeseed drilling. We got half of it done using our direct Horsch drill but the second half has seen our Fendt MT943 pulling the farms 8m Vaderstad drill behind an Amazone catros disced cultivator and JD 8R. This set up is being closely followed by a Fendt 724 and heavy gang rolls. I have instructed the operator to roll it in two different directions to give the seeds a good seal and to lock in recent moisture, and halt any slugs. Unfortunately the Fendt crawler developed a fault inbetween its two stints of drilling and got taken back to TNS for repair, I was glad I chose to hire it before deciding whether to keep it later this autumn as it gives "issues" a chance to show themselves and get fixed at the dealers expense. All the same it left us without a cultivations tractor , but to the dealers credit they sent us a lovely low houred Challenger 775E to use instead. So nice I asked to keep this one as well on hire for a couple of months. We have paired it with our 6metre Kockerling cultivator which requires plenty of tug. This years Maize campaign is coming up fast and its likely we will start our first field later this week, that gives us a chance to prepare our grain trailers and fit the greedy boards to them. The Jaguar drivers looking forward to trying out the new 12 row Kemper in this years campaign. Finally, due to the stop start nature of baling this year because of the rains we got well behind, so when GJ Peck asked if we would like use of a Krone 1290 baler for 2 days to try on demo we said yes. And what a nice piece of kit it was, our driver actually preferred it to our new New Holland big baler! The good news is that Pecks have brought it back to help us finish of this seasons straw with a view to it replacing our Kuhn baler if a deal can be reached.

Another picture of A.J Wrights mighty Lex 8900😎...........Love those Convio headers.

Joe's been hiding in the hedgerow's again to get his pictures😄

Most have finished combining now around the east anglian fens, thats usually the case by the late August bank holiday. One of the last is A.G wrights whom harvest 3000 acres plus across a very wide area. Last year they replaced a 9 year old 780 Lex With a smart new 8900tt which I finally caught up with on Saturday as it munched its way into 200 acres of wheat. They also were hosting a demo of a Fendt 9T in another field, so I took a few pics of both harvesters.

I see Farmer Phil has a 5S on the UH style rear wheels. And seen a few online up for sale at different MF dealers. Maybe the early tractors (2021/22) were using up stock wheels left over from the previous shape 5 series.

CASE Quadtrac 715 Explained. Looks awesome when on the move.

The most obvious error they've made is on the length of the bonnet, you can see this when you look at the vertical silver stripe in front of the cab, its much wider on the model than on the real thing. And consequently the exhaust now looks to far forward & the bonnet slopes too much. They had to extend it because they were using the old 7726 chassis ,cab frame and fenders which are 6 inch higher up on the larger frame tractor compared to the mid frame 7718 (7S.180/90) You could draw a fairly flat line across the top of the rear fender and across the bonnet top on the real machine, but on UHs "abomination" its nearly a triangle!!! So much for that "all new tooling", its not, its a 7726 with new parts added to it. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!

7S model and the real thing from side view so you can appreciate UH's failure.

A few more miscellaneous pictures of harvest 2023.

All done Smithy?

In recent weeks the rain most affected the baler teams locally, they have gotten way behind. But after several dry days they are now on a tare. The local mega AD Plant owners Pretoria have bottomless pockets & have just added to their MF fleet with another 10 x 8740S😍 most of which are now delivered. 20 of these models now in their fleet😎 must make them europes biggest user of the 8700s. They also have bought 7 more Krone big pack 1290 balers to go with lots bought last year which I hadn't noticed. I only bought the NH 1290hd over the ROS Krone model because I thought there would be more of them locally! Got that miles wrong didn't I😄 There aren't any NHs working, but there are loads of Krones and they do look very nice too.

The one bright spot in the new releases is that CASE Puma 260, it looks spot on and shows just what UH can do when they get things right. And that surely means both NH blue versions will be of equal quality🙂

What UH have done with the 7S is the equivelent of removing the large frame 7726 tractors bonnet and then fitting a mediun frame 7718S bonnet in its place! From side view the bonnet now looks like a ski slope!! So if I wanted to make a decent 7S I have to buy a 5S.145 for cab & fenders, a 6S for wheels & tyres & chassis (which would need to be extended, 7S chassis is same as 7726 which was replaced by 8S!!!!!!) And a 7S for the bonnet if its right as I'm not quite sure if its dimensions are correct. Cheapest option? Buy a CASE 165 they got that right😄 Or buy a 5S remove bonnet and rear wheels. Buy a 6S put its bonnet on 5S (probably same dimension or v. close.) Put 6S rears on 5S and change over fuel tanks steps light indicators etc. What a hassle.

As you can see above the 5S (BOTTOM IMAGE) is way closer to the 7s real cab image top than the middle image 6S.

Puma 260 looks excellent.......................But as for those MFs Am I right in thinking they have used the same cab frame and rear fenders off the old 7726?? I think I'm right and its very dissapointing, especially when the 5S 145 cab & fenders are absolutely spot on!! All three cabs on the 5,6 & 7 should be identical and they clearly are not.

Unfortunately I passed a burnt out TX 34 in a wheat field today, only its rear end was untouched. Fortunately the remaining wheat crop was still ok.

Here's my latest purchase and this is the third time I've bought a Challenger 775E & I can't for the life of me remember why I let the others go! Maybe now they are history and not current production we can see in hindsight what a smart looking tractor they were. Each 700 series from A to E just got better and better looking. The new Fendt MTs are nice but the "E" with its black nose and slick bonnet vents takes the top prize😎

No Shrewsbury Joe.

Harvest update. A few more recent pictures. Including a brand new New Holland CH 7.70 hybrid combine.

The model I ordered 3 weeks ago finally arrived yesterday, after much chasing up! Its been a right rigeramole with very poor communications. When I think how professionally Peter at Brushwood models deals with "c*ck ups" I wonder why I bother with some of the others. On a plus note the Challenger model I have received is absolutely mint.

It should move two digits to the left imo, inaccurate cr*p!

Caught up with these beast recently, the new John Deere 9RX 640 with the fancy roof and impressive exhaust stack😎........have to admit it has finally overtaken the Quadtrac in the good looks stakes.

"Thats more like it"

"Get those damn cars out the way"!! Manns Lexion 8900tt demo combine muscling its way through a Norfolk village😎