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At work with Gav


Gav836

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Last years bill was over £6500 as well Sean, this years total is over £7000 at the moment. The machine is now coming into its 12th season so is getting on a bit for the type of work its used for. We should hopefully be having a new Standen Uniweb destoner on demo this year, was talking to their salesman at LAMMA about it when he offered us the demo, supposed to be a vey good machine so we'll have to see what happens

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Nope, 65 acres still in the ground, we're waiting on the haulier to tell us when he's coming as British Sugar are operating a lift and process within 24hrs policy at the moment. We do have some frost damage but ours look alot better than some, the fields are still green for one thing

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Our Dell have all gone now, very minimal frost damage on them, they always seem to keep better in our straw bale lined shed with a layer of straw over the top of them than some do in insulated stores. The Saturna and Crisps 4 All don't go for a while yet though but they are in a group storage facility at Thetford. My boss estimates that we are £20,000 down on potato money this year as the yields and sizes were down on the Dell........thats before we get to the sugarbeet side of the cropping

Forgive me my ignorance but I only know Dell as a manufacturer of electronics! Crisps 4 all is the company that your growing for I take it? 20k down is a fair bit. Will your boss profit from the high prices or are they all contracted at set prices?

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Pentland Dell are a popular alternative to Maris Piper for processing into frozen chips and the like here Niels, they have the capability to produce large elongated tubers and a heavy yield. Crisps 4 All are an unknown quantity to us, its the first time we've grown that variety, we had to wait for the seed to come in from Holland as the supply of Saturna seed had completly ran out here last spring, both the later are grown for Walkers crisps, the Dell being for McCains, all are on contract but no idea on the contract prices.

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Roy Hudds are up up up in the wholesale and foodservice world this weeks chaps... Romano now £280... yes £280 PT (Bagged though) ... Best chipping piper £220 PT ... reject washed (not a bad sample)... £165.00 PT...

Bought 10t of Agria today for £165 in bags.. good peeler they are too

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We sent 6 bulker fulls of McCains reject smalls into another processor at Grantham this year, their idea of smalls are big enough to use as baking poato's as well. If they were making that much maybe we should have found another buyer :-\

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I was off with flu when they loaded the bulk of the Dell but when I returned they told me we had a shed full of smalls, when I went in there I expected to see a load of golf ball sized spuds but not these, certainly wouldn't call these smalls :of

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Smalls to McCains most years are anything under 50mm in diameter but due to Dell being elongated you can still get some big ones in that lot, not sure what the restrictions were this year but it seems criminal to me when I see some of what we've fed to the cattle in the past two years.

Are these big enough...... ;D

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Nope they aren't when they get to that size Marky, thats the joy of Dell, keep them watered and they get to that size and stay solid. Those were two that had been pushed out the end of a row in the field hence the scuff marks on them

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Pentland Dell are a popular alternative to Maris Piper for processing into frozen chips and the like here Niels, they have the capability to produce large elongated tubers and a heavy yield. Crisps 4 All are an unknown quantity to us, its the first time we've grown that variety, we had to wait for the seed to come in from Holland as the supply of Saturna seed had completly ran out here last spring, both the later are grown for Walkers crisps, the Dell being for McCains, all are on contract but no idea on the contract prices.

I see, thank you for the information! I thought McCain also contracted a lot of Russet Burbank for the MacDonalds french fries? Some decently sized tubers in your pictures. We had a lot of those 'beet' in a crop of Victoria's that I was loading the other day. I think last season showed once again that irrigating always pays off!

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like most commodoties/produce its decided before the lorry leaves the farm that potatoes will be rejected, often the lorry driver will know before hes even loaded.

My old boss would sell off the field pre-pack market Romano, as he said most farmers dont look at storage and grading costs.

So those parts for the de-stoner Gav are they genuine or Spaldings make do???

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Genuine parts on it Simon, they wear better.

Well finally, after 10 months of waiting I have a John Deere on demo and am rather unimpressed by it. Yes the commandarm makes life better in there by putting everything close to hand and in one place and yes it has a better lift range on the hitch but to be honest they're stuck in the past with the cabs. It does pull and handle the plough well but it should do at that size compared to a 6920s (which incidently is showing signs of a looming transmission failure) but by god can't it drink diesel in doing so, no matter where i set the engine management functions its using between 30 and 36 litres an hour while ploughing, thats between 2 and 10 litres more an hour than any other tractor we've demo'd, work that out over 5-6000 hours and its a good lump of money

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the new john deere engines are quite thirsty  so i've heard on more than one a occassion

I'd heard that as well but up until now thought that it may just be another one of those tales that get spread around

gav  shouldnt that bonnet decal say 6930 mate  :laugh: :laugh:  looks like the wiking one to me :laugh: :laugh:  ,thats a hellish high fuel consumption compaired to the others as you say, which has been the lowest then? cant remember to be honest

Its a frightening amount of fuel to use really, admittedly that field is tight having just had a 6 row beet harvester run on it but no different to what the MF had to deal with and that used 27-28ltr/hr. In order of fuel usage the New Holland was the lowest but they all sat in the 25-28ltrs/hr bracket

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