We don’t know what made Dutch contracting firm Hack Harvest put four hedgecutters on a Claas Xerion. What we do know is that it’s called the Octopus
The Dutch worry about ditch maintenance. So they must, with huge areas of their flat, tidy country kept dry by the thousands of dykes that criss-cross it like a fine-mesh net. If these don’t shift water then Holland gets more than wet feet.
Regional government has responsibility for waterways large and small. Much of the work is handled by contractors: companies like Hack Harvest in the south of the country, a big firm operating a range of machinery at home and abroad. It cuts and clears both sides of around 900km of dyke and river banks every year, and that’s a steady job with conventional equipment. So the company teamed up with hedgecutter specialist Herder to create a machine that can cut both sides of a waterway in a single pass — the appropriately named Octopus.
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