Friday, 02 October 2020 10:23

Malone ploughs to a win

Written by  Staff Reporters
Award-winning round bale chaser with a capacity of 16 bales. Award-winning round bale chaser with a capacity of 16 bales.

Enterprise Ireland and the Ploughing Association decided to push ahead with the annual Innovation Arena competition for new innovations from agri-tech and farm machinery companies – albeit in a virtual format.

Sixty companies entered the competition, of which thirty were selected to make a pitch to the judges via a video link. 

Malone Farm Machinery, the Mayo-based machinery company, was named as the overall winner of the 2020 Innovation Arena, winning the award for its latest product, a new purpose-built round bale chaser with a capacity of 16 bales. 

The Express is able to operate to a weight capacity of 26 tonnes, the design features a heavy-duty chassis with a tubular loading arm on each side of the trailer to lift and lower the bales without damage.

 In operation, after four bales are collected, they are lifted onto central cradles that are cleverly lifted using a telescopic mast to the “second floor”, allowing room for a further eight bales underneath. This configuration allows the machine to carry a larger payload than single level machines, but importantly reduces the overall length to make maneuvering in the paddock and the stackyard much easier.

Judges report that they were impressed with the superb design and high quality of engineering of the machine, alongside the potential the machine must have to improve the speed of collection and safe handling of round bales.

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