phil phoenix

One word to describe the past week on the farm "Fendt", We got our two Generation 6 demos and very impressed we were. Firstly the new 724 Gen 6 was collected from TNS yard on Monday (see pic) and yet again it appears they have raised the bar. The machine seems to be a bit more responsive and efficient all round with some nice software improvements. There are few obvious differences with its predecessor externally, mainly the changed bonnet decals. And although we have only had our 724 Gen 5 for a year we agreed to swap it in for a new Gen 6 once it has finished Maize drilling in late May. Our 724 is on an annual hire purchase agreement which suited us best at the time. Some machines get bought outright, it just depends on the best deal and our longterm plans concerning its duties. The dealers Fendt salesmen was keen to get some of these new models out and about so the deal got offered and accepted. The 724 left on Thursday and the demo 936 arrived on Friday. We have it for a few days. So far its been on the tanker which is easy for it, its powerful and very nimble for such a big tractor. We will keep it for a few days and try it on various kit. We had to wait a while because the dealer only had a 942 to try and that was too much power for our requirements presently. Claas have told us that the combine has arrived in the UK so delivery will follow when its convenient and we are past this busy period. Our Contractors steaming ahead with maize preparation with no issues and our drilling is going well although some rain would be now welcome after a mostly dry 6 week spell following the biblical rains back in Dec, Jan and Feb. We are also taking all our maize spraying work back in hand, currently the Lemken 5000 Vega handles our 1800 acres of cereals and another contractor did all the liquid fertilizer work. This is another reason for considering a higher hp tractor than our current 250hp John Deere. Watch this space.

Never did like those early Ts, much prefered the final T3 version with the snazzy headlamps. The T5 got launched today Joe, Ive seen a few pictures but am waiting for someone to stick the livestream up on Youtube, Looks very smart.

Have Britains painted the wheels on those JDs this time round?

Andy B "I was there this afternoon picking my 2 up. Pity we didn't bump into each other." Its a good job I went yesterday then, If you had two and others had visited as well there wouldnt have been any left for me😄

Britains john deeres tend to be two tone green due to a metal chassis and plastic hood..................Sikus 8360R was mostly decent as it was mostly metal. Im hoping this new 8R will be similar or better.

I had the day off today and took a trip to Manns of Saxham. And just as I had hoped the new Lexion 6900 has landed. In fact it was still in a large delivery carton with a couple of others. It took them 10 minutes to book it onto their system it was so new😆................Anyhoo I paid £175 for it and came home. I wont get a chance to look at it properly till the weekend but it looks just the right size for my layout as I had hoped. The box is nice but a bit misleading as one pic of it shows the nicer 1080 cutterbar with the slick split reel. The main pic shows the 930 which to be fair will all fit into my barn🙂 Im told this 500hp straw walker machine will actually see off the old hybrid 760 model which there are many of around here, very impressive!

Im just interested in how much effort im going to have to put in to make the 8R look right😄

Ahhhits not just me whos had words with him then, I bought a Replicagri trailer off him recently as it said on ebay he had 2 in stock. He didnt, and 2 weeks later it still hadnt shown up! So finally I managed to reach him on the phone where he said he couldnt get one, so I suggested instead he send me a Wiking tri axle Krampe for the same money I had already paid and that he could swallow the five quid difference for my inconveniance !! He agreed, I got the model and I will try hard not to deal with him anymore. Especially after all the above comments.

The farm had the opportunity to look at an MF 8S this past week, the 225hp version arrived on monday and got hitched to our tanker for a couple of days before TNS took it back. The overall opinion was positive especially from the drivers seat. However I think at 200hp plus we are likely to stay with their AGCO stablemate Fendt and my two JD drivers are staunch green and yellow men so I dont see one coming this way soon. Also all our tractors are varios now so perhaps we will look again when the VT gets released next year. This coming week I am hoping to see the Generation 6 Fendt 700 and 900 machines as both have been promised to demo but are in demand. Maize planting is now in full swing and the weather has dried up a lot of the ponds we encountered earlier in the year thankfully, so seedbeds are presently mostly decent. I did another deal this week by swapping in our 5 year old JCB 531-70 for the more powerful and sophisticated 542-70 version. This would appear to be JCBs most popular model and two of our neighbours are already running them. Once again I decided to buy an ex hire machine with only 500 hrs on the clock. Its fitted with harder Bibload tyres and will be responsible for yard duties and loading grain into trucks etc. Our other loadall the smaller manitou is well suited to digging the maize out of the poly tunnels and that will occupy it for at least a couple of months of the year. Our Contractor is getting on well with his mighty 875E Challenger and eating up the acres, however his JD 7290R is being a bit bothersome and muck spreading schedules are falling a bit behind. He has stuck with it for four years so far but is currently considering his options.

Does it show a picture of the finished version of the JD 8R or just a poorly detailed prototype?

Most tractor fans like lorries as well I should imagine. Scanias have always been my favs and I will certainly pick one of the offerings from Marge when they get released. Nice work by the way James.

OK thanks.

I did used to see new yellow ones on the essex, Suffolk border some twenty years ago.

Yes, we have a farm not far from here which has the yellow with a blue top and also a standard blue version although an older version than the current Rollspeeds. Havent seen any new Rolland ag. trailers locally although one of the salad growers bought a couple of specialist trailers last year, so they must have a dealer somewhere in the E.A fens area.

New from UH in black, Yellow and red apparently.

Has T&F been supplied with Fendt sprayers then?

I have started a thread on the JCB 542 in the harvesting and other machinery conversions thread, its looking very nice so far.

Paint job on plastic parts was a total success🙂

Apparently the only hassle is field work in sticky conditions where the tread wont self clean like standard cleated tyres. I think they look quite smart on the JCB and the paint job ive just done on the parts transforms the model. I will fit it back together and post it up tomorrow.🙂

We set up the Fendt 724 on duals for our maize drilling campaign due to ongoing soft ground conditions. Bit of a nuisance to move between fields but Im sure we will manage. We are using fertilizer this year and so we bought a Lemken front mounted tank to do the job. Leading our maize planting campaign this year is our contractor Bill Legge in his newly acquired 875E challenger, a deal too good to be missed he told me. It hardly knows its got the vector on the back of it and he will source something wider once he completes our 3000+ acreage. The mighty 875E is being followed in certain heavier fields with our 6m Kuhn power harrow sat on the back of the JD 6250R and our 6215R will also be working on some specific fields with the 3m Cultimer implement. A set of rolls will follow behind the drill as per usual. Meanwhile we are ferrying maize back from the poly tunnels to the AD plant and Bills other tractor the JD 7290 is working ahead of the cultivations gang on the muck spreader. We currently have no spare machine to pull the tanker and it looks like Im going to have to get my cheque book out again as the business has expanded quicker than I anticipated over these past 12 months. TNS are keen to get some more demo machines out on the farm at this busy time of year and have offered me a chance to see both an MF 8S and Fendt 900 next week which will both get plenty of use!!

I was pleasantly surprised how easily my JCB came apart, now I can spray all its remaining plastic parts JCB yellow, should look good when finished🙂

Yes Joe, you must get out more😄

I dont mind the tyres to be honest, but you can easily swap them over with ones off the New Holland 7.42 as they are virtually the same size according to your earlier measurements.

I think mad mark did go mad in the end, he may well have done the steering mod. Actually im not that bothered as the rest of the new JCB 542-70 Is pretty decent. And it also comes apart quite easily so spraying the plastic parts yellow should be straight forward🙂

I seem to remember that someone on the forum did a convo on a JCB 550-80 loadall and got its previously fixed wheels to turn. I couldnt find the post/thread when I looked earlier, can anyone remember it??