REPORT: Dutch contractor Arnoud van Dijk has taken drastic action and cut a Fendt tractor in half to transfer more weight to the front axle while injecting slurry
Based at the village of Schalkwijk, near Utrecht, contractor Arnoud van Dijk has used 12.0m wide application kit since 2001, the first 2.0t system supplied by Votex. Pulled behind a 5.5t Fendt 514, stricter slurry regs required the contractor to invest in heavier kit to ensure more slurry ended up in the ground.
The injector’s weight has come down a few kgs since, but, when Mr van Dijk was in the market for a replacement, average weights were around 4.0t. Requiring an 8.0t tractor to pull and lift it, the only way to spread the weight was to fit a buffer tank to the front of the tractor, or a couple of hose reels. However, even then most of the all-up weight is still carried on the tractor’s rear axle. The Dutch contractor was of the opinion that this reduced all the benefits of the umbilical hose system. “I might as well have bought a trailed slurry tanker,” he says.
Operating mainly on clay and peat land, he was seeking a 12.0m wide solution that would allow him to get onto grass as soon as possible at the start of the season in February without causing any damage. After quite a bit of brainstorming, the contractor decided the best solution to evenly spread the weight of the tractor was to mid-mount the slurry kit between the front and rear axles
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