At work with Gav

[Gav836]

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

[MODELFARMER]

Gav u no he doesn't . ... YOU mention the fendt in fuel saving

are you sure you have the deere transmission setup correctly for the job in hand? is your deere on full treaded tyres as the fendt is? even the same size?

on my 6930 deere if i alter the transmisson settings i can go from using 25ltrs an hour to 30ltrs an hour while at the same engine revs and same forward speed, while on the drill, remember its not always a fair test even 5psi tyre pressure makes a heck of a difference in fuel when in heavy draft work

Edited for prohibited use of Text Talk!!

[Gav836]

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

[MODELFARMER]

be interesting to campare a 7530 pulling the same i reckon the fuel between the two wouldn't be that much different,

[Tractorman810]

i guess its the old saying "once bittern twice shy "ricky, i doubt many people would stay with a brand, no matter what it is, if they had that many issues with a item they bought , i have for a instance, had 3 bms now, all good, but if i had a dog i wouldnt buy another even if it was a new model, you loose the confidance in it as a brand. i doubt very much even you would stay with jd if you had a real dog like gavs had???

[MODELFARMER]

i guess its the old saying "once bittern twice shy "ricky, i doubt many people would stay with a brand, no matter what it is, if they had that many issues with a item they bought , i have for a instance, had 3 bms now, all good, but if i had a dog i wouldnt buy another even if it was a new model, you loose the confidance in it as a brand. i doubt very much even you would stay with jd if you had a real dog like gavs had???

My blood is green and will always be green

[Deere-est]

i guess its the old saying "once bittern twice shy "ricky, i doubt many people would stay with a brand, no matter what it is, if they had that many issues with a item they bought , i have for a instance, had 3 bms now, all good, but if i had a dog i wouldnt buy another even if it was a new model, you loose the confidance in it as a brand. i doubt very much even you would stay with jd if you had a real dog like gavs had???

If you had a bad one after three good ones you would not take law of average?

Gav, great updates mate. It's nice you get to try everything properly before your boss gets out the cheque book and your summing up of the brands is interesting reading. Nice to read what is written by someone who knows what they are on about and not just 'keep her lit' and all that!!

[TM190]

If you had a bad one after three good ones you would not take law of average?

Gav, great updates mate. It's nice you get to try everything properly before your boss gets out the cheque book and your summing up of the brands is interesting reading. Nice to read what is written by someone who knows what they are on about and not just 'keep her lit' and all that!!

Hit the nail on the head!! Fed up with that sorta stuff everyone basing desions on colour and the amount of 'Black Reek'     

With you Gav your trying out the different brands to find the best for the job and obv you care about the fuel costs etc therefore helping the farm books! I know many a tractor driver on farms that would just pick there fav tractor and that would be it..  \

Fendt do seem to be a good tractor but many people usally strugle to find the finance to pay for them being so dear.. But its just a matter of figuring out if it would be worthwhile  \ 

You could buy the NH and it only do you 8 years were as the fendt may do longer therfore justifying the higher cost?   

I'm glad its not up to me 

[Deere-est]

Good point there Blake, many may not argue with the savings that can be had by some of these machines but struggle to meet the initial cost to make the savings happen.

[Jez]

I know that you are "against" green and yello Gav but the Deere Universal AutoTrac really is the best and most affordable on the market.

Also you could if wanted you could combine it for spray documentation Maybe another benefit to look at.

Also, the coverage and support for the deere system is great.

Final point, I think your local dealer is Ben Burgess, if so then they were looking into setting up an RTK network that would give you accuracy down to 2-3cm, basicall 2 or 3 tris's

Interesting reading mate. I always like your updates

Some additional details:

These results were from the GLG Test. It is called a "Power Mix Test" which is exactly that. They take the 4 tractors in the test and use and measure fuel consumption while doing the following tasks:

Ploughing: 100% and 60% Engine Load

Tined Cultivator: 100% and 60% Engine Load

Mowing: 100% and 60% and 30% Load Engine Load

Transport Application: 100% and 60% Engine Load

Then they combine these figures and take the average in the picture below or in the link below:

http://www.deere.co.uk/en_GB/products/agriculture/tractors/greenefficiency/greenefficiency.html

These are not deere figuers they are external figures where all tractors are tested in the same conditions, same day, same implemets, same operator. Just as a side note, the 7530 was fitred with AutoQuad not AutoPowr.

Also, some more details on the test:

http://www.dlg-test.de/powermix/PowerMix_Part_I.pdf

Like I say mate, always reading your updates but maybe a bit more in this fuel story than we think.

One final point is that these tractors are delivered by the manufacturers so they can be "the cream of the crop" however the DLG also have test called OECD tests where they select a machine from the product line and then take that away to be tested under their own conditions. This means that they can never be modified. HOWEVER... unfortunately these figures cannot be published because or laws etc etc.

Anyway mate, some interesting reading. Also mate, keep in mind that soon.... soonish all manufactutrers will go to the next stage 3B emmision regulations. Will the new machine you get be tier3?

Also of course the fendt and NH will be better on fuel than the 6920s, engine technology has come on hugely in terms of efficiency since that engine.

I will be interested to see your decision

 

[Pingu]

We felt the very same about the puma we had on demo we had the 225 cvx though but same range we were pulling 7 furrow 17 inches wide at 28L hour we were very impressed!!! Were on serious look out now for 7530 as starting to play up had dealer out 4 times in a week for fairly major faults not good for a 2000 hour tractor.  But pick what  ever does the job for you mate   Its amazing how much some manufacturers have moved on and what ones havn't..

[Tractorman810]

i wouldnt say gavs anti jd jez, just look at the agro they have had with the 20, but not the 10's he likes them, and itsnot gavs choice at the end of the day either, he just drives whats put in the yard, its his boses bank balancethats about to get a hit afterall,

[Lord Ferguson]

Interesting Jez... the market leader is not on that list of comparisons...    ... have JD left out some detail in their publication of this test 

[schw84]

The topcon system is good, it takes an hour and you can take it off the tractor and put it on the combine. Problem is it costs £10k and what benifits does it give for the 10K equal distances so you don't pass the same place more than once with the machines potentially saving fuel etc, but for 10k I'd recommend waiting a few years. I can't use the thing i've tried and when i've pulled my A-B line out it only then copies straight lines, my brothers been using it at home and thinks its brilliant, but he is a uni student with no common sense so it benifits him. Using it on the tractor to drill with doesn't bring much benifit if you are good and can drive in a straight line anyway you may as well not waste your money. the only thing i can see as a benefit is you can drive over the same place every year when you get it set right and if it remembers the field you in.

my verdict is nice system but a bit of a luxury unless your 3000 acres or so using unskilled labor which cant drive straight. 

[Gav836]

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

[Light Land]

Having used a basic light bar through to RTK 2cm auto steer I would ask why not hire the GPS off some joker to pull the beds up and drill after all once the 1st pass is done with it it's easy to stay on the bed or tram line.Our RTK was Trimble witch is cheaper than the Deere RTK (in NZ)A few farmers in our area had the base unit the so we just got the signal off them worked well.9am and 10pm every day the signel would drop for 15mins as the satalites adjusted.

[Jez]

The key with RTK also Gav is the repeatability you might need for spraying and harvesting the spuds.

[Pingu]

The topcon system is good, it takes an hour and you can take it off the tractor and put it on the combine. Problem is it costs £10k and what benifits does it give for the 10K equal distances so you don't pass the same place more than once with the machines potentially saving fuel etc, but for 10k I'd recommend waiting a few years. I can't use the thing i've tried and when i've pulled my A-B line out it only then copies straight lines, my brothers been using it at home and thinks its brilliant, but he is a uni student with no common sense so it benifits him. Using it on the tractor to drill with doesn't bring much benifit if you are good and can drive in a straight line anyway you may as well not waste your money. the only thing i can see as a benefit is you can drive over the same place every year when you get it set right and if it remembers the field you in.

my verdict is nice system but a bit of a luxury unless your 3000 acres or so using unskilled labor which cant drive straight.

Now I'm by no means an expert but thought I'd place my view as we are over 3300 acres so do run it and I wouldn't class any of us as unskilled labour by no means.  We are running GPS on the combine, fert spreader, sprayer and cultivation tractors.  And being able to run a tractor straight at exactly 6m+ for 16 hours a day for 2+ months is impossible I dont care what kind driver you are. It saves us litterally thousands every year in metal, diesel, time and job quality.  We run a gps system that moved from spreader to combine but it now moves over to challenger in summer it's only 45mins to move mind you challenger has its own screen now so is easier.  On the drill it has massive benefits, you watch what the machine is doing not where your going so job overall is better.  My GPS on sprayer has been vital this year only got lightbar guidance and auto section but making new tramlines in rape and keeping it right in badly rolled crops of wheat has meant all year we have tramlines that are right saving a lot chemical and its going on in right place!  But having seen this any farm can even afford a simple system as will quickly reap the benefits if spraying, cultivating, spreading, drilling and row crop work.  So I think gav is perfectly right to look into it and I have Topcon in my sprayer and have no issue with it mate.

[jakescot]

I am impressed with the quality of the land round you Gav, Ive been at wells once delivering cattle to chalk hill farm, was a gorgeous day, 31st october , we stayed the night in the truck lodge at fleet on the fens. 

  you are havin fun trying out tractors eh...........the gps systems are finding favour round here too most of the bigger dairy boys have them now  all citing fuel, fertiliser and chemical savings as a justification on the cost........few will be lookin at the full system however. i looked into trimble through the claas dealer, he had only one unit left and it was a bit too much for me this year.

when you take everything into account, the decision we made to buy the claas  3 yrs ago was probably a wrong one  based on their resale value  now against anything other than a new claas.

The fendt may be way too expensive  for the most of us, and I`d find it hard to justify the purchase of one.....who knows however, you may get the MF and it be everything you are looking for, a fendt in a red livery  ;D ;D  but  more affordable !.

keep the updates coming

[MJB1]

took a while to catch up , but glad i did , good to see you're still busy gav & with all this new stuff coming & going quite a lot of head scratching to work out the better machine you need.

i dare say you've yet to find the ideal tractor , but i suspect you'd like the option of the claas even though the fendt sounds like it's ticking all the right boxes bar the one by the £ sign

i think i'm now classed as old school as i havent got a clue what half those LCD screens would be used for & i don't understand half the things you're talking about 

i used to get myself into a flap using the 'new' fandangled datatronic on the old massey 3000's    i remember the most important things we used to look for in a tractors performance was wheelslip monitoring, fuel consumption , price & maybe cab comfort .  where did the time go

ah looking at all the young'uns post here just go for the one with the best sound system , you'll be sorted

yer keep her lit lad

* keep het lit ? ............did i really just say that  ?............. bugger just made myself sound a right knob ........ knob ? or nob ? what ?*

[jdc]

Good thread, Gav. Always a difficult decision to weigh up all the factors for a new machine. I have a basic Trimble GPS and it works fine for most jobs, when you get into RTK it becomes more expensive. Moving to variable rate spreading this year so this is where I expect to make the greatest saving.

I beleive all full spec NHs now come autosteer ready.

[Tractorman810]

gav you mentioned the sprayer you have doesnt have the auto boom on it, would you need that to work along with the steer system ect to get the max out of it then??

i asume you can add this to the sprayer as a after market option from jd,

[archbarch]

the extra money spent on a Fendt would be gained back in fuel saving and re-sale value making them a cheap tractor in the long run. The same scenario as comparing a Fastrac to Mog, I know a farm that was running a Fastrac alongside a Mog, same hours, same job the Mog used 30 lts of diesel/day less than the Fastrac, that can be alot of money in a year.

Do you really need GPS? alot of farmers are having it fitted saying it will save money??? I have my doubts as there are other ways to save money which get overlooked.

[Gav836]

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

[TM190]

I suppose the GPS will only improve on cost saving if in the past you have been losing money that way?

Its had to tell I know, but you Gav could be as accurate as What GPS could provide, or on the other you could be miles overlapping? In which case then It would be a good investment.. Hard to say really i suppose  \