Potato growing - experiences with Tillerstar???

[simonbrochhansen]

Hi,

My name is Simon Hansen, I am from Denmark and new to this forum...
I would like to hear from people who have experiences with the Tillerstar from George Moate.
People who have operated the machine but also I am very interested to hear from owners and/or managers who could perhaps tell a bit more detailed about the advantages and disadvantages if any...


As of now we are set up with the following for preparing beds for the potatoes:
- bed forming with 3 furrow Grimme bedformer
- destoning with Grimme CS1500
- planting with a Miedema Structural 4-row belt planter.

Our main "problem" so to speak is to get the beds in a pair of 2 beds to line up for one pass with the planter.
The bedformer makes 2 consistent beds and 1 bed put together by 2 halfes in one pass.
The destoner makes 1 bed in one pass.
The planter "needs" 2 beds of 1,5 meter (3 meter total) which should be 100% parallel - which is somewhat of a challenge when the destoner works on its own...

My thought was if we had a two bed Tillerstar on RTK those two beds made in one pass would always line up with eachother and fit 100% with the planter...

Hope things makes sense and I do apologise if my written English causes any nonsense!

Regards,
Simon

 

[Exfarmer]

Surely it is the bed former which dictates the beds, are you sure the planter is following the bedformer?

 

[Iben]

Don't know much about the tillerstar, I suspect it suits light ground with small stone. What is your soil type?

Would you not be cheaper changing your three bed bedformer to a two bed so they match?

 

[Exfarmer]

Don't know much about the tillerstar, I suspect it suits light ground with small stone. What is your soil type?

Would you not be cheaper changing your three bed bedformer to a two bed so they match?

Think a 3 furrow machine will leave 2 beds
2 outer and 1 in the middle
If the OP means a 3 bed machine I think it will be lucky to match up

 

[Iben]

Yep, reread it. So when bedforming, just drive one bed inside the marker, sounds like he has rtk. Then two full beds and one of the ploughs fits inside the previously opened up bed?

Or can implement steer be fitted to the destoner? @SoilEssentials

 

[riverside2]

I think as important a question is to ask what your soil type is before you go down the Tillerstar route?

I've heard of experiences where use of them on heavier soils and in marginal planting conditions was very difficult. Constant clogging up of the machine and operating speeds that were so slow..................

 

[JimWilson]

Or can implement steer be fitted to the destoner? @SoilEssentials

Yes, quite a few TrueTracker units round the country now.

Some nice operations here. See

I also know a guy in Sweden using 2 Scanstone separators with TrueTracker to keep the beds exactly the right width apart. He is planting into the 2 beds with a 4 row structural pulled by a Fendt on an extended wheelbase ( using "cotton reel" extensions) to span the 2 beds.

Jim

 

[simonbrochhansen]

Thanks for your replies...

We run the three furrow bedformer with all three furrows running in "new ground" - no furrow runs back in the previous furrow as i have seen a lot of the four furrow ones do...
Our problem is that the even if the beds are made correctly with the bedformer, which runs on RTK, then the destoner comes along with no autosteer and it does not take much for it to leave the beds a bit off measurements.. You can say the destoner ruins the precision of the bedformer if you like...
And that causes a few problems when the planter plants into two beds at the time..

We are doing exactly what JimWilson mentions the guy from Sweden does - except the autosteer/truetracker on the destoner... our RTK is a Leica (huge mistake!) and so we cannot easily put steering on the destoner..

My main thing was to hear if Tillerstar is a good alternative to the standard bedpreparing..?? We have very light sandy soil with smaller stones.

I like the thought of being able to replace 1 tractor and bedformer and 1 tractor and destoner (3 operators altogether since the destoner runs 24 hrs) and replace with 1 tractor, Tillerstar, RTK and 2 operators for 24 hrs...
We would free up one tractor and get the better precision by finishing two beds in one pass which again would fit with the planter afterwards...

 

[MF565]

where I worked ran a first generation tillerstar for part of a season. On dry light ground it was ok but wet/ heavy/ clay it was no good. Had issues with outer stars melting away but designs been changed to solid stars to stop that. We found tine wear to be fairly high getting less than 60 acres out of a set on a 2 bed machine.

 

[Honest john]

Firstly I do run a tiller star.

I fail to see why you can't run your 4 row planter straight behind your Grimme hock tine.
I think you would need a levelling pass first with a power harrow or tined press to achieve the required accurate passes from RTK on the Grimme. Or leave it flat behind the grimme & RTK on the planter only.

The more machines you run over the beds the further out you get.

I now have RTK steering on the 4 row planter as well. A big +.

If your stones are a problem then I don't think the tiller star is the answer. You will pick them with the harvester.

 

[Iben]

@Honest john how do you rate your tillerstar? What % of your crop do you do with it?

 

[Honest john]

@Honest john how do you rate your tillerstar? What % of your crop do you do with it?

Well we do 100%.
It's been very reliable.

The down sides it builds up with soil in the front of hood if a bit wet. The clod that you bury in the base of ridge can become an issue at harvest.
It's a heavy machine that takes power.

The up sides are it leaves a nice ridge with finer soil on top which helps retain moisture.
Where as a decloder leaves the larger pieces on top ( to weather down ) & the fine in the bottom.

Every year is different & in a wetter summer it's no bad thing to have some clod in the bottom of ridge, but in a dry season it's not so great as that clod is still in one piece on dig day.

 

[Iben]

Well we do 100%.
It's been very reliable.

The down sides it builds up with soil in the front of hood if a bit wet. The clod that you bury in the base of ridge can become an issue at harvest.
It's a heavy machine that takes power.

The up sides are it leaves a nice ridge with finer soil on top which helps retain moisture.
Where as a decloder leaves the larger pieces on top ( to weather down ) & the fine in the bottom.

Every year is different & in a wetter summer it's no bad thing to have some clod in the bottom of ridge, but in a dry season it's not so great as that clod is still in one piece on dig day.

Are you quite stone free soil?

 

[Honest john]

Are you quite stone free soil?

No stones here.