Fendt 1050 / Quadtrac

[Finn farmer]

Haha - I don't know your location, but I doubt it
Cotton requires some serious heat units - it was originally a desert plant.
Think northern NSW / Queensland in Australia, or Texas or California in the US

PS - you'd only have one if you had at least 2000 hectares or more to harvest a season . . .

Yeah, i would've thought that couple of hundred hectares would never justify that.

I'm in Finland, maybe it would grow, but not enough to justify farming it.

 

[Farmer Roy]

Finland - I doubt you have enough heat units or a long enough summer

 

[pdagriservices]

Finland - I doubt you have enough heat units or a long enough summer

If you could grow the stuff in Finland!? We d be growing plenty here I guess? Don t know anything about cotton but I d imagine you need alot of heat and sunshine?

 

[Farmer Roy]

If you could grow the stuff in Finland!? We d be growing plenty here I guess? Don t know anything about cotton but I d imagine you need alot of heat and sunshine?

Think along the lines of northern NSW / Queensland, Texas or California & you'll be right

 

[Finn farmer]

If you could grow the stuff in Finland!? We d be growing plenty here I guess? Don t know anything about cotton but I d imagine you need alot of heat and sunshine?

We've 24/7 sunlight in summer, but there isn't that much heat, so real cotton farming is out of option. I might do a test next year to see igäf it even starts to grow.

 

[JJT]

There was a lot of cotton grown in Georgia, USA when I spent 6 months there after leaving school. A year or two go now though! It was all boll buggy and module builders then. Those round bales look a lot easier.

 

[pdagriservices]

There was a lot of cotton grown in Georgia, USA when I spent 6 months there after leaving school. A year or two go now though! It was all boll buggy and module builders then. Those round bales look a lot easier.

$1.3 million dollars is a hell of a lot of money for what just seems a great big self propelled round baler! Think it's the most expensive product JD do! There can t be that much to them strip the cotton off and stick it in a bale chamber? Or am I missing something?

 

[oil barron]

Think along the lines of northern NSW / Queensland, Texas or California & you'll be right

Or Uzbekistan

 

[Farmer Roy]

$1.3 million dollars is a hell of a lot of money for what just seems a great big self propelled round baler! Think it's the most expensive product JD do! There can t be that much to them strip the cotton off and stick it in a bale chamber? Or am I missing something?

I think you're missing something

Biggest JD header ( combine ) here is close to a million $
There's a lot more going on with these, plus, no one else makes them . . .
Purchase price is irrelevant - these machines can earn their value in one 4 month season when contracting
Contract grain harvesting - $50 / ha
Contract cotton stripping - $200 / ha
Cotton pickers are $300 / ha in irrigation, but they are only 6m wide, whereas we are 12m ( same as most grain harvesters )
I just did a rough calculation, this stripper was new this season & so far has done about 5000 ha since mid march, with at least another 1500 in front of it. X $200

Parked next to a Cat D10 bulldozer for size comparison

As for being "just a baler", that round module has a diameter of 2.4 m & weighs anything from 2.2 - 3 tonne

 

[Farmer Roy]

Anyway, back to the topic in hand.
Many people on here comment that the qaudtrac & other big tractors are dinosaurs or "over the top"
I tend to agree, when used for tillage & specially the size of machines they are used with in Europe / UK. WTF are you doing with your soil to need 500 hp on 6 m ?
Their real place is pulling large planting equipment to get over the ground quickly on very large areas, or for very short planting windows ( such as Canada )
This one was bought specifically to pull a 24 m ( 80 ' ) zero till planter, for cool season cereals & legumes
Pity I couldn't get a picture of the planter but it's a long way from here Suffice to say, the aircart has 3 compartments & a capacity of 20,000 litres
All CTF on 3 m wherltracks based around a header width of 12 m
This is where they come into their own.

But yes, I can't see the point of them in UK conditions

PS - it isn't mine. I'm only a very small farmer compared to these fellas out here

It's where I'm currently stripping. Stripper isn't mine either, I'm just running one of them

 

[pdagriservices]

I think you're missing something

Biggest JD header ( combine ) here is close to a million $
There's a lot more going on with these, plus, no one else makes them . . .
Purchase price is irrelevant - these machines can earn their value in one 4 month season when contracting
Contract grain harvesting - $50 / ha
Contract cotton stripping - $200 / ha
Cotton pickers are $300 / ha in irrigation, but they are only 6m wide, whereas we are 12m ( same as most grain harvesters )
I just did a rough calculation, this stripper was new this season & so far has done about 5000 ha since mid march, with at least another 1500 in front of it. X $200

Parked next to a Cat D10 bulldozer for size comparison

View attachment 809464

As for being "just a baler", that round module has a diameter of 2.4 m & weighs anything from 2.2 - 3 tonne

View attachment 809468

Wow!!! That bale might be slightly bigger than a 4x4!!

 

[pdagriservices]

I think you're missing something

Biggest JD header ( combine ) here is close to a million $
There's a lot more going on with these, plus, no one else makes them . . .
Purchase price is irrelevant - these machines can earn their value in one 4 month season when contracting
Contract grain harvesting - $50 / ha
Contract cotton stripping - $200 / ha
Cotton pickers are $300 / ha in irrigation, but they are only 6m wide, whereas we are 12m ( same as most grain harvesters )
I just did a rough calculation, this stripper was new this season & so far has done about 5000 ha since mid march, with at least another 1500 in front of it. X $200

Parked next to a Cat D10 bulldozer for size comparison

View attachment 809464

As for being "just a baler", that round module has a diameter of 2.4 m & weighs anything from 2.2 - 3 tonne

View attachment 809468

That's an impressive workload too that to me seems literally the most profitable operation in agriculture! Thanks for educating me on that one!

 

[Brisel]

The 92,000 acre farm I worked on in Northern NSW about 2 hours north of @Farmer Roy had 6 Quadtracs run 24 hours/day in shifts from November to June doing 2-5 passes on wheat stubbles with 12-18m cultivators & seeder rigs. Each Quad was doing circa 1200 hours/year. That's getting the most out of your machine! Most UK ones are doing 400-800 hours at the most.

 

[Farmer Roy]

That's an impressive workload too that to me seems literally the most profitable operation in agriculture! Thanks for educating me on that one!

The trouble is, they are a very specialised machine that can only harvest one crop, that is grown over a relatively narrow geographic area of the country

 

[Farmer Roy]

The 92,000 acre farm I worked on in Northern NSW about 2 hours north of @Farmer Roy had 6 Quadtracs run 24 hours/day in shifts from November to June doing 2-5 passes on wheat stubbles with 12-18m cultivators & seeder rigs. Each Quad was doing circa 1200 hours/year. That's getting the most out of your machine! Most UK ones are doing 400-800 hours at the most.

Those days are just about gone - not too many doing any cultivations much here now. It's all zero till to conserve moisture & minimise tractor hours

Where abouts was that ?
I'm currently about 1.5 hours north of home, so probably not far away

Wasn't Greenteee or Harris's?

 

[Brisel]

Those days are just about gone - not too many doing any cultivations much here now. It's all zero till to conserve moisture & minimise tractor hours

Where abouts was that ?
I'm currently about 1.5 hours north of home, so probably not far away

Wasn't Greenteee or Harris's?

Peter Harris at Moomin, Rowena. About 12,000 acres of irrigated cotton as well as the dryland wheat.

 

[Farmer Roy]

Ok - Rowena is not that far west of here

 

[Farmer Roy]

I can just about gaurentee they would have had no irrigation this year & I doubt they would have planted any wheat rither, looking at other places in that vicinity

 

[Brisel]

Have you had any rain yet? 20mm at Plumthorpe last week, not that it's going to make a huge difference.

 

[Banana Bar]

The 92,000 acre farm I worked on in Northern NSW about 2 hours north of @Farmer Roy had 6 Quadtracs run 24 hours/day in shifts from November to June doing 2-5 passes on wheat stubbles with 12-18m cultivators & seeder rigs. Each Quad was doing circa 1200 hours/year. That's getting the most out of your machine! Most UK ones are doing 400-800 hours at the most.

My Quadtrac is doing 1100 hrs / yr. I must try harder.