Cultivation well covered
Well known for making power harrows, rotary hoes, sub-soilers, mulchers and combination drills, Alpego has for 45 years used Swedish steel in delivering machines of high quality and durability.
Donnelly reports a record sales year for 2014 and is cautiously optimistic for 2015, given the long term optimism particularly for the dairy sector.
Origin represents leading brands from Europe such as Pottinger, Alpego and Hatzenbichler, and while the show turned up nothing too new, there appeared to be improvements or upgrades to current models.
The Hatzenbichler has sold well over the years as a low cost means of establishing small seed crops. Customer prompting has seen Origin has introduce an in-cab control box to monitor fan speeds, belt slippage and tank levels. This should help eliminate ‘bald spots’ that make the heart sink after emergence.
CDFD was also a good opportunity to focus on a pre-ripper that might be a help after the drought has left ground to be worked up in tougher than normal conditions
The Alpego Delta 300 pre-ripper has a heavy-duty toolbar that fits in front of a rotary hoe and carries four robust legs with replaceable points and wings.
The staggered formation of the legs reduces draught requirements and the aim is to set the depth about 75mm below that of the rotary hoe’s blades.
The outcome is a general loosening of the soil to aid crop establishment, but more importantly it eliminates the smearing effect normally associated with rotary hoes and blade wear is 30% lower.
Amongst the Pottinger range of grassland equipment was the Top 762C twin rotor rake, with an adjustable working width of 6.9-7.6m.
Improvements for the 2015 season centred on the mounting of the tine arms, which are subject to huge loads as these machines are pushed hard to stay in front of today’s high output self-propelled foragers and balers. If damaged, a two-bolt fixing system ensures the damaged tine arm can be removed and exchanged quickly, cutting downtime in the paddock.
At the front of the machine Origin was showing the Multi-Tast jockey wheel system, which runs ahead of the raking rotor to control adaption over undulating territory and ensuring there is no soil contamination from the tines bottoming out.
Pottinger’s well known high volume jumbo loader wagons now come with a 5-year warranty on the transmission, including the input gearbox, rotor drive gearbox and the rotor itself.
The warranty is conditional on an annual pre-inspection by a Pottinger authorised dealer, surely a small price to play for such peace of mind.
Tel. 07 823 7582
