‘High fives’ for grower’s new high clearance tractor working in quality vegetable crops

Fri 7/08/2015

The first example of a new generation of high clearance tractors has been put to work by a Worcestershire grower to provide increased capacity for spraying and other operations across more than 1000 acres of vegetable crops.

It is the second Landini high clearance tractor working at D Southall & Sons, Norchard Farm near Stourporton-Severn, where brothers Paul and Michael Southall run a business in partnership with their father Donald that was established more than 100 years ago.

Adding a second Landini high clearance tractor to the machinery fleet was prompted by a need for increased spraying capacity to help improve application timeliness in a narrow spraying window.

“We considered a purpose-built self-propelled sprayer but concluded the tractor made more sense because of its versatility,” says Paul.

The farm already runs a Landini Powerfarm HC, which has performed well; the new acquisition supplied by Richard Tooby Farm Services at Putley near Ledbury, is an improved version of this tractor. But underbelly clearance of 680mm is achieved in the same way – by rotating the bull gear final drive units at the rear and fitting 42in diameter rims on both axles, shod with 230/95R42 radial row-crop tyres.

“Despite the smarter cab interior and additional features, this is still a simple tractor that’s easy to drive,” says Paul. “The extra clearance over a standard tractor is invaluable for many of our field operations but spraying is the tractor’s main task; the high clearance avoids any physical damage.

“And we can use the HC tractors for other tasks, such as operating a polythene laying machine to create low polytunnels because the tractor easily clears the hoops,” he points out. “We couldn’t do that with a self-propelled sprayer or any of the other jobs the new tractor will handle.”

For the full story, read the press release using the link on the right.

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