StripCat

[SilliamWhale]

Still don't know. Personally I like it for the sugar beet, and am not convinced it is worth it for the OSR< although it does look good at the moment.

We generally grow OSR 1 in 4, and beet about 1 in 7/8

I don't know how much beet you grow DKA but I would have thought it is justifiable to purchase one if only for beet if it was sub £50k and you had 200 acres of beet per annum? But how reliable will it be for beet year in year out?

 

[dontknowanything]

If we did beet only we could use a 3m. They are about £20k, and we do about 70ha of beet

 

[SilliamWhale]

If we did beet only we could use a 3m. They are about £20k, and we do about 70ha of beet

Its sounds viable to me.

 

[dontknowanything]

Well, finally got the results in

1231t/17.48ha = 70.4t/ha

Neighbours field, 500m away, lifted previous day did about 87t/ha

Still, I would say it is a qualified success. To get 70t/ha with a plant population of only 55k/ha shows to me that the beet in the rows were absolutely fine, it's a question of better management at tilling/drilling time to get better establishment.

 

[Tractor Boy]

Well, finally got the results in

1231t/17.48ha = 70.4t/ha

Neighbours field, 500m away, lifted previous day did about 87t/ha

Still, I would say it is a qualified success. To get 70t/ha with a plant population of only 55k/ha shows to me that the beet in the rows were absolutely fine, it's a question of better management at tilling/drilling time to get better establishment.

That's a good yield for that population. I take it the next door field you refer to had a 100k pop or thereabouts.

 

[dontknowanything]

That's a good yield for that population. I take it the next door field you refer to had a 100k pop or thereabouts.

I don't know specifically but it was not gappy. I'd guess 90-100k?

 

[normandyfarmer]

We did more demo this year to establish sugar beet, I don't have the pictures yet. I can share with you some of the work we did in France this spring.

This is between Beauvais and Paris in a good loam with a late terminated cover crop. Spacing is 20".

We worked in the morning and drill in the afternoon with a conventionnal precision drill (not a disc drill) Kverneland Monopill. It went just fine as it rides in the clear strip.
Strip-till in 6 rows and drilling in 12 thanks to Trimble RTK.

One part had 2 passes, one was worked at 18cm, one at 25cm deep.

I was surprised by how much moisture was in the ground even after no rain in the previous month and a cover crop half alive.

The emergence :

This will be followed by a sugar factory so they will count and evaluate everything.

 

[normandyfarmer]

This was at 45cm spacing in a late killed cover crop.
This farmer is 100% no-till but the yield on sugar beets are just not reliable (some years good, some years very bad).
We worked at 15cm deep on these sand. This was close to the channel, 5km from the sea.

From the cab, to set the trash wheel thanks the pneumatic system !

As long as the cover crop remain attached to the ground, the machine can worked through it without plugging.

 

[normandyfarmer]

Some picture of spring beans drilled with the double coulter behing the Stripcat in Normandy :
(Pictures from the 26th of April)
The cover crop (oats, phacelia, mustard) was broadcasted ahead of a Amazone Catros last summer and killed with Roundup in late November.

 

[normandyfarmer]

This last set of pictures was taken by me in England in beach sand. There was a lot of straw from old carrots bedding that was spread on this field.

It was tricky to set the machine in those conditions but the trash wheel with pneumatic down pressure helped a lot !

La vidéo

The main motivation for that farmer was to keep some residus against sand wind who cut the growing beets. I've never heard of that before.

 

[Daniel]

This last set of pictures was taken by me in England in beach sand. There was a lot of straw from old carrots bedding that was spread on this field.

It was tricky to set the machine in those conditions but the trash wheel with pneumatic down pressure helped a lot !

La vidéo
View attachment 44328 View attachment 44329
The main motivation for that farmer was to keep some residus against sand wind who cut the growing beets. I've never heard of that before.

Nice pictures, light land blowing in the spring and damaging the beet is a regular problem in the fens, usually got round by sowing a cover crop of wheat or something off the heap.

 

[farmerfred86]

Anyone been using a strip cat recently? How is it running for sugarbeet?