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mowing query


neilw

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Once again I may be showing my ignorance here, but is the only  diffrence between a mower and a mower conditioner the fact that the conditioner part flufs it up and leaves it in a nice swathe waiting to be baled?? Ive seen a couple of times on here the UH Kuhn mower and the front mounted one and think it looks the dogs.......

Bearing in mind you would (Probably, im geussing) need to go over it with a whirlrake, would it make that much difference??? ???

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The idea of a 'conditioner' is that it is a unit that operates in conjunction with the mower in that it 'crimps' or crushes the grass after its passed through the blades of the cutting drums or discs, the joints or 'nodes' to be precise and 'bruises' it to release the sap which aids the drying process, sort of like putting your clothes through a wringer after washing like Mother used to do. A mower conditioner takes considerably more power to drive than a standard mower.

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im not sure whether crimpers are still available for mowers but in my opinion far better than conditioners, as they left a neater swath and took less hp and there were no blades to break off which would end up blowing the forager up.

sure enough the jaguar 890 we run has a metal detector just at the feed rollers ;) so no metal gets through her

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Conditioners are often nylon 'blades' fixed vertically to a horizontal tube across the swath exit on the rear of a mower. As the grass passes by the nylon 'blades' hit the grass bruising it. If you pick up a handfull of conditioned grass you'll see dark areas up the length of the stems where moisture has escaped. It isn't only to help it wilt but also it releases sugars which when baled or clamped, help the ensiling process.

On another note and a little off topic. Metal types can indeed be picked up by a foragers metal detector. It doesn't make it fail safe as in a big swath or through reversing the header, metal objects can and do get thrown over the top of the feed rollers and miss the detector. Nylon types are kinder on the grass and although won't be picked up on a metal detector, they won't do the damage.

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ive never used a forager with a metal detector before, years ago i was alongside a nh 717 when it blew up an awful sound i will never forget.

I think vicon were the 1st to fit nylon fingers to conditioners they also had the only crimper mower at the time mid 1980s

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ive never used a forager with a metal detector before, years ago i was alongside a nh 717 when it blew up an awful sound i will never forget.

I think vicon were the 1st to fit nylon fingers to conditioners they also had the only crimper mower at the time mid 1980s

Just testing out my memory on Vicon mowers. Didn't they do an Olympus trailed mower with a roller conditioner, and the Doublet with a spiked nylon fingered conditioner. Four drum Krone mower conditioners were also very popular at the time too.  :)

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from what i can remember the vicon olympus had either the nylon finger conditioner om models or km for the roller/crimper model.

The farm i worked on in 1987 had a vicon olympus a neighbouring farm had a crimper version the only one ive seen, they say it took 20hp less to drive than the conditioner version.

The britains vicon mower was based on the olympus

Not sure on krone as all the mowers around us at that time were taarup or vicon with a few massey 70s

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