KVERNELAND HEADLAND NEWS
MAKING HAY WHILE THE SUN SHINES
For Dorset hay and haylage supplier Ridge Farm Fodder, output is the key to tedding. But it’s not about travelling fast – it’s about covering the ground efficiently.
“We need to move the crop quickly, to encourage faster drying, and that means having plenty of capacity to cover the ground, without driving too fast,” explains Jasper Gutteridge, pictured. “It’s why we have now added a 15m trailed Kverneland tedder to the fleet, so we can cover a lot of ground with each pass.” From 830 acres around Dorchester, the firm produces around 30,000 small bales, and a further 9,000 big square bales in a variety of sizes and lengths. Jasper reckons that over the last 10 years in business, weather patterns have become much less settled, and a lot more unpredictable along the Jurassic coastline, which in turn can cause havoc with his haymaking techniques. “It’s become very easy to make poor quality forage, but quite challenging to make high quality, premium forage,” he says. “So we’ve had to re-focus what we do and how we do it.” Equipped with 14 rotors and delivering an impressive 15.6m working width, the Pro Line 85156C trailed tedder has enabled that shift in focus. Supplied by C&O Tractors, it is one of two tedders used by Ridge Farm Fodder. The second machine is an eight-rotor, 9m Kverneland Pro Line 8590 model. “We replaced a smaller 7.6m-wide, six-rotor machine with the new trailed model, increasing our total working width from 16m to a generous 25m of tedding capability,” he says. “And it’s been a huge improvement for us.” “Now it takes much less time to cover the ground, so we’ve
trimmed wages and reduced our diesel bill while continuing to make high quality hay and haylage.” There is still efficiency gains to be had, as Jasper has yet to invest in GPS. “We do overlap, which is better than missing some of the crop – it all needs to be moved, and sometimes more than once,” says Jasper. “And I would have bought a second 15m machine, but we do have some awkward small shaped fields, where the eight- rotor model comes into its own.” “It’s quite advantageous to also use the smaller machine to move crop on the headlands and then keep the wider, trailed machine travelling straight up and down. We can ted over 30 acres in an hour without rushing.”
16
Powered by FlippingBook