Driving impression: JF VM12 vertical mixer Danish grassland kit firm JF may be best known in the UK for building mower conditioners and trailed foragers but for the past five seasons it has been producing feeder wagons too. In this competitive sector it started out with paddle feeders and has recently added vertical-auger machines to the line. Any good? Well this is our initial VM impression
The Danes, as a race, don’t like gadgets. They’re not into fussiness, preferring a direct, straightforward, no-nonsense approach.
Likewise it could be argued that JF, as a company, falls in line with this national norm because, when asked to describe the firm’s grassland kit, most scribes would be trotting out very similar adjectives. And even if these words don’t apply to all of its grass machinery, they’re certainly ‘spot on’ for the firm’s vertical-auger mixers, which are available in both one-auger (6.5m3, 8m3, 10m3, 12m3, 14m3), two-auger (19m3, 22m3, 27m3) and enormous three-auger (38m3) configurations.
On initial VM introduction, the first items to catch the observer eye are those striking vertical bars at both ends of the machine. More than just decorative, these stainless straps in fact conceal one of the fundamental principles behind the JF design, the top part of the feeder tub comprising eight separate steel sheets that are bolted rather than welded together – a truly modular construction. Note here that the new entry-level 6.5m3 and 8m3 models have fully welded sides, unlike their larger sibs
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