Kverneland claims to offer the only mower of its kind in the 4040C mower conditioner – a 4m wide trailed machine with its own integrated grouper. Andrew Faulkner travels across the Irish Sea to operate one of the 11 machines currently working on the Emerald Isle
Could the UK be missing a trick? Missing a trick that the canny Irish have picked up on. Not inconceivable, is it?
For although the Irish market has tended to follow the UK example in most farm machinery developments, this is not the case within the specialist area of grassland kit. It was the Irish, after all, that first adopted the self-propelled forager in significant numbers, the UK industry only following after it had witnessed the high outputs achieved across the Irish Sea. Perhaps the same will happen to 4m wide grouper mowers, such as the Taarup 4040C pictured below. Even though it was shown at Grassland ‘99, not a single example has been sold in the UK. Compare that with Ireland, where ten 4040Cs have been sold this year and a Kverneland Ireland demo unit has been busy promoting yet more sales for 2002. Expected Irish sales for next year are put at 20-30 units.
So why has the big 4040, so far, failed to appeal to the UK farmer/contractor? Well, part of the reason must be that the UK, in general, prefers to spread, ted and rake rather than ‘group’. Yet the past couple of catchy seasons mean that many contractors have not bothered with tedding, and simply used the rake to place a large enough mouthful in front of the forager. This being the case, why not use a grouper to lay one row alongside another
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