Horsch Focus TD

[true blue 1872]

Any users feedback, or anyone who’s had a demo of a Horsch Focus TD, of the positives & negatives please.

Interested in the 4m for a demo.

How much HP do you need going deep/on heavy land?

Can you sow into cover crops/sprayed off cover crops? How does it handle residue/chopped straw?

I like the fact you get a coulter bar with 15cm spacing between coulters. Would just be sowing wheat & barley, no oilseed rape.

Any feedback would be appreciated,

Many thanks.

 

[Brisel]

Sorry. I can't help. A local estate has one but they bale straw off in front & disc the stubbles before drilling. I asked for a demo but one never turned up.

30 cm leg spacing over 2 rows is comparable to a Claydon. Crumbler roller then press wheels then disc coulters look good. The Horsch brochure doesn't show any drilling direct into stubble which seems odd, though one bit of the video looks like it's into a wheat stubble.

 

[true blue 1872]

Sorry. I can't help. A local estate has one but they bale straw off in front & disc the stubbles before drilling. I asked for a demo but one never turned up.

30 cm leg spacing over 2 rows is comparable to a Claydon. Crumbler roller then press wheels then disc coulters look good. The Horsch brochure doesn't show any drilling direct into stubble which seems odd, though one bit of the video looks like it's into a wheat stubble.

Thanks for the reply Brisel, that’s a shame one didn’t turn up to give you a demo, lost a potential sale! I’ve seen a few videos on YouTube but would be great to hear from anyone that’s seen one in a demo, or owns one.

 

[will_g]

Any users feedback, or anyone who’s had a demo of a Horsch Focus TD, of the positives & negatives please.

Interested in the 4m for a demo.

How much HP do you need going deep/on heavy land?

Can you sow into cover crops/sprayed off cover crops? How does it handle residue/chopped straw?

I like the fact you get a coulter bar with 15cm spacing between coulters. Would just be sowing wheat & barley, no oilseed rape.

Any feedback would be appreciated,

Many thanks.

I bought a second hand 6m Horsch Focus TD in July and I can honestly say it's been the best investment I've made on the farm. I've been tempted so many times to buy one over the last 5 years, but was always nervous as Horsch don't seem to run a demo machine in the UK.... therefore a second hand one seemed a safer bet!
Since arriving on farm it has surpassed all my expectations and is the perfect machine in moving people from a full cultivation regime over towards a lower till approach. It doesn't like sowing into tall cover crops (which is fine) but will handle residue re-growth with ease. We have used it to establish cereals into different scenarios including stubbles, cultivated land and even behind potatoes and sugar beet. In each instance the crop emergence is incredibly even from field edge to the centre and has given us enormous amounts of confidence to use it more widely, to the point where the Vaderstad Topdown is now redundant and so for sale as is the Challenger tractor we used to pull it!!
We already use a Horsch Avatar in our quest to move over to full zero till, but the Focus TD works beautifully alongside it for the scenarios where we would've traditionally had to cultivate etc. We will use the Avatar for cover crops, wheat and beans then use the Focus for OSR, Barley and any land which needs some remediation work.
Horse Power wise, we pull a 6m machine behind a 350hp crawler on a variety of soils from sand to heavy clay and use the 40mm low disturbance points.
We've tried many of the other strip till machines (sumo dts, Claydon etc) and liked them all, but for us it's the conventional 15cm coulter spacing which won it for us.

Hope this helps

 

[true blue 1872]

I bought a second hand 6m Horsch Focus TD in July and I can honestly say it's been the best investment I've made on the farm. I've been tempted so many times to buy one over the last 5 years, but was always nervous as Horsch don't seem to run a demo machine in the UK.... therefore a second hand one seemed a safer bet!
Since arriving on farm it has surpassed all my expectations and is the perfect machine in moving people from a full cultivation regime over towards a lower till approach. It doesn't like sowing into tall cover crops (which is fine) but will handle residue re-growth with ease. We have used it to establish cereals into different scenarios including stubbles, cultivated land and even behind potatoes and sugar beet. In each instance the crop emergence is incredibly even from field edge to the centre and has given us enormous amounts of confidence to use it more widely, to the point where the Vaderstad Topdown is now redundant and so for sale as is the Challenger tractor we used to pull it!!
We already use a Horsch Avatar in our quest to move over to full zero till, but the Focus TD works beautifully alongside it for the scenarios where we would've traditionally had to cultivate etc. We will use the Avatar for cover crops, wheat and beans then use the Focus for OSR, Barley and any land which needs some remediation work.
Horse Power wise, we pull a 6m machine behind a 350hp crawler on a variety of soils from sand to heavy clay and use the 40mm low disturbance points.
We've tried many of the other strip till machines (sumo dts, Claydon etc) and liked them all, but for us it's the conventional 15cm coulter spacing which won it for us.

Hope this helps

Thank you for the reply! I managed to get a demo of one but it was in very sticky conditions. It wasn’t very fair, as we wouldn’t have been sowing anyway but we tried it empty to see what would happen. Considering how wet it was, it did a good job but we found it’s limitation, which was the wet soil building up on the press wheels and then building up on the coulter bar frame work. We tried it on both wheat and bean stubble but got a lot of soil build up. If the demo had happened when we wanted it, it would have been a different story!

 

[will_g]

Thank you for the reply! I managed to get a demo of one but it was in very sticky conditions. It wasn’t very fair, as we wouldn’t have been sowing anyway but we tried it empty to see what would happen. Considering how wet it was, it did a good job but we found it’s limitation, which was the wet soil building up on the press wheels and then building up on the coulter bar frame work. We tried it on both wheat and bean stubble but got a lot of soil build up. If the demo had happened when we wanted it, it would have been a different story!

Certainly has been a trying year to get crops established. The Focus has been stuck a fair few times, but is has kept going longer than I thought it would (maybe it’s the larger diameter press wheels?). We are still using it wherever possible and have drilled straight behind spuds and hopefully some beet next week

picture is winter barley straight behind spuds

 

[true blue 1872]

Certainly has been a trying year to get crops established. The Focus has been stuck a fair few times, but is has kept going longer than I thought it would (maybe it’s the larger diameter press wheels?). We are still using it wherever possible and have drilled straight behind spuds and hopefully some beet next week

picture is winter barley straight behind spuds

Looks good!

 

[Brisel]

Not exactly heavy land.

 

[true blue 1872]

Conditions were very sticky

 

[will_g]

Conditions were very sticky

Likewise!