fire

Fuel efficiency has become a big focus as farmers and contractors look to control costs of lifting sugar beet, said a leading harvesting specialist.

To send a link to this page to a friend, simply enter their email address below.

The message will include the name and email address you gave us when you signed up.

Email address

  Send link

To send a link to this page to a friend, you must be logged in.

More than 150 growers visited a demonstration on the Thornham estate at Ringstead, near Hunstanton, to see the Holmer Terra Dos T3 in action, said the firm’s Alex Mathias.

“We had a constant flow of about 160 visitors throughout the day starting from 8am. We were also very pleased at the interest in our latest harvester,” he added.

It was the first time that sugar beet has been grown on the land for about 35 years since the host landowner, Stephen Betts, stopped growing the crop. British Sugar’s Robin Limb said that the results from growing beet on ‘clean’ land were very encouraging and yields had been about 98 tonnes per hectare, adjusted.

In this late-lifted crop, which had been harvested by Holmer’s machine, yields were good. And the average sugar content was between 19 and 20pc, which was very satisfactory.

Mr Mathias said that a new feature, an adjustable lifter, had also generated much interest although fuel economy was a key driver.

“Farmers and contractors are very concerned about running costs and fuel diesel consumption. The Holmer uses about 32 litres per ha fuel consumption.

“We’re using mechanical axles rather than hydraulic wheel motors which some of our competitors use, which is more fuel efficient,” added Mr Mathias. “We’ve also got technological advances because it is the only machine that can adjust the depth on each row individually – instead having a standard across all six rows.”

He said that Holmer’s technological improvements included a nine-row and eight-row harvester.

“They’re not really suitable for this market because they don’t have adjustable row widths. It is either nine rows at 45 or eight at 50cm. But it was the driving force to develop the independent lifters. The whole head can be lifted up or down but each lifter can be adjusted individually. At a press of a button, it can be reset.”

Holmer, which makes 200 machines a year, has always led the field with technology, said Mr Mathias. “They were the first to produce offset and low compaction lifting system using ‘crabbing. he added

The six-row machine, which was 3.3m wide and 12.5m in length, has a 22-tonne tank. It also featured a 50:50 weight-balance mechanism between front and rear axles, regardless of whether the tank was full or empty.

There was also much interest in the Terra Felis 2 cleaner-loader, which has a 900mm wide web through the centre of the machine, plus a patented vario-cleaner designed to cope with beet in a range of conditions. The machine, provided by contractor, D & J Transport, of March, also had a scoop mechanism to enable beet to be pulled onto the cleaner-loader.

The Terra Transport Chaser, which was based on a recycled harvester, had been lent for the demonstration by the Wickham beet group from Woodbridge. Fitted with 1050 rear tyres and 800 at the front, it had a “crabbing” method. “As a result, it didn’t leave a single mark down the field,” said Mr Matthias.