New Pottinger Novacat comes with automated curve control
Triple 'butterfly' or dual mower combinations have become increasingly popular, offering increased output and better utilisation of tractors that keep gaining horsepower.
They do some cultivation, but mostly harvest grass for dairy and goat farmers in the locality, offering a full service from cutting to raking, tedding, baling and wrapping.
Says Trevor, “A lot of farmers have their own mowers but more and more they get us in to do the whole job”.
The Lalichs prefer Pottinger machinery -- a Jumbo 6010L loader wagon and an eight-rotor 8.91T tedder, and a Pottinger A10 double rear butterfly mower with variable working width of 9.25-10m when paired with a 3.5m front mower.
Trevor says this robust, well-built machine does a good cut, and despite its large working width is quite manoeuvrable. “It is easy to lift one or both rear mowers when working in smaller paddocks,” he says.
The front and rear mowers’ overlap eliminate striping when turning, and the cutting width is adjustable from the cab with the ISOBUS monitor. This system also controls how the mowers lift at the headlands to cut right to the headland swath.
When turning, the ISOBUS system also reduces the working width of the rear mowers to increase the overlap between the front and rear mowers so there is less striping when encountering and moving around obstacles like water troughs or pylons.
Daniel Lalich says they “largely work on flat paddocks, but if we do work in rolling country, the system allows us to easily reduce the working width from 10m to 9m from the cab hydraulically, again to avoid striping”.
The geometry of the three mowers sees a centre-mounted pivot on each cutter-bar to give optimum ground tracking via a hydraulic suspension system that is fully adjustable to suit ground conditions.
“As an example, “you can increase the pressure when the mower is bouncing around too much on rough ground or you can ease it off in wetter ground, so it doesn’t dig in,” Daniel says.
“You can do this manually from the monitor or you can set it to automatic mode, so the system adjusts the pressure depending on the conditions although we usually leave it on the automatic setting.”
The mowers have Pottinger’s exclusive ‘Y’ drive transmission gearbox, operating at 1000rpm and fitted with dual slip clutches on each side of main central gear box but not on the PTO shafts to eliminate backlash.
A non-stop hydraulic breakaway system lets the mowers swing back in the event of a collision, while at the same time the cutter bar moves upwards on a ball joint, allowing it to lift over obstacles.
