Practical test: Kverneland Stubble F CTS450 cultivator Big Daddy of the one-pass stubble browners Over the past two autumns, profi has carried out one-pass cultivator tests, thus reflecting the move by many arable farms into this form of high-output, reduced-cost tillage. In ‘03 it was the Simba Solo, last year we looked at Väderstad’s TopDown, while for ‘05 we switch attention on to Kverneland’s Stubble F
Simba Solo STR, the Gregoire Besson Discordon DXRV, Quivogne Tinemaster, Väderstad TopDown – all are household cultivator names, if there is such a class, in today’s high-pressure world of arable farming. Notable by its absence, to date, has been Kverneland, but that changes with the launch of the Norwegian firm’s French-built Stubble F.
So why the current interest in ‘one-pass’? We touched on it in last year’s Väderstad TopDown test, but the debate is probably still worth a brief revisit. Is there a quick explanation? Yes. Well, reasonably so. There are arguably four key contributing factors at work here:
■ A requirement to cover more ground in less time at reduced cost
■ Shortage of skilled labour
■ Abundance of available tractor hp
■ Soil structure maintenance/correction.
All of the above suggest there should be demand for high-output cultivations but building in an element of soil loosening/conditioning. Lack of staff is increasingly prevalent, so the machines need to stretch out wide and be capable of multiple ha/man; in direct contrast, modern tractor hp is generally not an issue, assuming the funds are available to source it, so again the cultivators can be built to subject the ground to as much action, in terms of soil structure maintenance and correction, as deemed necessary – and, just as important, as quickly as possible. Which brings us back to where we started – one-pass tillage. Still with us?
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