Daniel
Member
- Location
- Mildenhall, Suffolk
Since @Feldspar isn't obliging us with one of his interminable deliberations on which item of machinery he should buy next.....
Our Dominator will be into its 30th harvest next year, however acreage has gone from 200ac to 400ac combining, if British Sugar continue to try and ruin the sugar market that could get up to 500ac combinables. It's a good combine, and could handle the job in a summer like we just had, but realistically it's not at the time of life where one can expect it to put up with having its workload doubled, especially in a damp year.
So obviously a contractor is an option, but we have to have staff for our 40k bird laying flocks, most of the work for them is done by midday, and everyone likes a bit of harvest work in the sunshine. So the combine has to cut the above, in the afternoons, in the fens the damp seems to rise and stop the combine by 9-10pm, though that may have been a factor which the Dominator suffered with (crop banging through the drum when damp), which a modern combine wouldn't.
Always grown all milling wheat but planting 50:50 milling and feed this year, just to give us less pressure next summer, if we get set up with a good machine etc we would possibly go back to all milling,
We are about 25 minutes from Saxham where all the Claas parts for the UK are held, so a lime green one seems logical from a backup point of view.
We're thinking, late Medion or early Tucano around 8-10 years old, somewhere around 1000 drum hours, which would then be run on for 20 years or so, all things being equal, anyone know of anything coming up in any farm sales or have one they are looking to trade?
I rang Rodney Cowle about the small Lexions etc he's got and had to have a strong coffee when I learnt the prices!
Manns have this 17ft Tucano, which has done 8 harvests for £80k https://www.anglia.claas-dealer.co.uk/used-machinery/claas-tucano-320-cl1884-05/.
When you consider the Dominator cost £17k when it had done 13 harvests in 2002 the inflation has been phenomenal.
Our Dominator will be into its 30th harvest next year, however acreage has gone from 200ac to 400ac combining, if British Sugar continue to try and ruin the sugar market that could get up to 500ac combinables. It's a good combine, and could handle the job in a summer like we just had, but realistically it's not at the time of life where one can expect it to put up with having its workload doubled, especially in a damp year.
So obviously a contractor is an option, but we have to have staff for our 40k bird laying flocks, most of the work for them is done by midday, and everyone likes a bit of harvest work in the sunshine. So the combine has to cut the above, in the afternoons, in the fens the damp seems to rise and stop the combine by 9-10pm, though that may have been a factor which the Dominator suffered with (crop banging through the drum when damp), which a modern combine wouldn't.
Always grown all milling wheat but planting 50:50 milling and feed this year, just to give us less pressure next summer, if we get set up with a good machine etc we would possibly go back to all milling,
We are about 25 minutes from Saxham where all the Claas parts for the UK are held, so a lime green one seems logical from a backup point of view.
We're thinking, late Medion or early Tucano around 8-10 years old, somewhere around 1000 drum hours, which would then be run on for 20 years or so, all things being equal, anyone know of anything coming up in any farm sales or have one they are looking to trade?
I rang Rodney Cowle about the small Lexions etc he's got and had to have a strong coffee when I learnt the prices!
Manns have this 17ft Tucano, which has done 8 harvests for £80k https://www.anglia.claas-dealer.co.uk/used-machinery/claas-tucano-320-cl1884-05/.
When you consider the Dominator cost £17k when it had done 13 harvests in 2002 the inflation has been phenomenal.
, but you do get the impression he doesn’t want to part with anything
