Niels

'Stubble burning' in Suffolk. No idea what caused this fire, on a field of winter barley stubble that had just been baled, as I was just passing by. Quite impressive though. Luckily the fire brigade was there soon enough.

The 1200 Vario is 12m or 40 feet.

This contractor used to run only IH and Case IH equipment but when he was in the market for a new CVX the price wasn't to his liking so he ordered a TVT 135 instead and painted it red and put some CVX decals on the side. They have some more NH's in red which became sort of their company colour. Not all have Case decals on them though. Sadly NH is a LOT cheaper over here than Case IH.

With all the sunny summer weather we have been having it was ideal to bale some hay or haylage. On the other hand, it is also very dry for the crops such as potatoes and onions.

This white Renault version would be a special 'Tracfor' edition.

Silage making differs a lot of course between Holland and UK/Ireland. Complete different world. We have been later even with second cuts since the first cut was 2 weeks later than usually.

Wrapping bales of haylage. Second cut has been mown over here. Wrapped haylage seems to be getting more popular again.

Lovely Belarus. Still seems to be in a good nick. Good to see it is properly used!

Ok, I am looking forward to more Ash Tree adventures . Will there be any new additions to the fleet as well this year?

It has been fairly quiet at Ash Tree Farm Sean. Not much news to tell? I always enjoyed the lively scenery and up to date pictures from what was going on in the fields. Will there be enough time for a harvest update with the MF and JD combines?

That control pannel makes our Grimme one looks ancient. Well, it probably is actually. Good luck with the harvester.

Disc topper don't exist afaik? It is either flails or blades for topping grass and set aside etc.. Disc's would be to fragile. Toppers are designed to mulch the grass so to answer your question; no, they cannot be used to mow grass for silage/hay as it pulverises it. (Unless you have an old flail head forager which blows it into a trailer).

Something to make a difference in this section. Steyr rather than NH/JD/MF . Silage is nearly done in my part of the world (South-West Holland). All done in beautiful weather. Both quality and quantity are very good from what I hear. Now it is onto the next cut.

Gav, are you still driving the T7030 or is it gone already? What is your final verdict about the blue machine? Got the joy *cough* to drive one of these myself recently, an ex-UK tractor actually freshly imported, and I was impressed how much better it was over the dreadful T6000's. NH still has a long way to go though, lots of little niggly bits that start annoy you. As I have only driven it for a few hours I was wondering what you thought of it? Especially the build quality I would presume to be better on your old Deere as opposed to the NH. Am I right?

That is contractor Breure isn't it Erik? Didn't knew they still had such nice machinery. The MB-Trac's used to do work for the RIJP as well. A lovely sight.

Aha ok. I thought you guys were on RTK-GPS. Won't take long I reckon.

Think it is one of the heaviest clay soil you can find over here. Just the structure is great after a strong winter.

Do you use the GPS for ridging also Ziko?

You need one of these really:

In 1987 Lemken did not build Zirkon power harrows yet Pete . Lemken started offering ph's by selling repainted and badged Lely models but I have no idea when that was.

I thought you had given up on potatoes Ziko?

Here are some pictures from a couple of 1200's with trailed Mather & Platt machines in Holland: http://www.agrifoto.nl/nieuws/log/2044

I see Gav, thanks. Irrigator sales agents must do good business in the UK. More questions Gav, if you don't mind. (UK potato/onion business interests me a lot). I noticed you don't have a Polish tent/hut on the back for picking out stones/tubers/haulm while a lot of farms seem to do? Why did you choose to do it like this? To me it seems very wise as they slow down the harvester a great deal? Yet, they seem very popular in most places.

If you have that amount of loose soil underneath the plant isn't it prone to drying out, with the risks of them growing very deep? Those tubers which grow very deep are called 'submarines' over here.

If you have 30 inch deep beds, do the potatoes also grow as deep? Seems an awful lot of soil that has to move over the harvester when lifting them. Would you know of any figures about green tubers? Over here we don't go deeper than 6-8 inch when it comes to preperation and are on 30 inch wide beds (your on 36" I reckon?). Still, less than 1% of the tubers is green.