Straw harrows may be one of the latest must-have fashion accessories for the arable farmer wanting to just tickle the surface, but Väderstad is adopting a slightly different approach on the front of its Carrier min-till cultivator
Iäderstad has once again looked at increasing the list of tools it can fit to its Carrier cultivator. Latest addition is the Crosscutter, a knife roller that’s positioned ahead of the System Disc to chop long stubbles in crops such as oilseed rape and maize. The theory is the blades make the first cut across the section of the stubble, and the following discs then cut it lengthways, hence the name Crosscutter. Running the cultivating discs shallow at the ideal seeding depth for oilseed rape should also encourage more volunteers to chit, reckons Väderstad.
To see how it performs we tested a Crosscutter-equipped Carrier 650 in winter rape stubble. Its 6.5m working width is split into three sections, with each section sporting two individual 1.02m wide Crosscutter rollers. This does mean there is a narrow strip that’s untouched by the Crosscutter, which Väderstad points out is a trade-off for better contour following.
Depth of the Crosscutter unit is controlled hydraulically, with a scale to show the operator the current setting. The hydraulic rams are all interlinked, another feature aimed at improving contour following. The blades themselves are constructed from high-tensile steel — there’s a chamfer on one side to aid self-sharpening — and are attached to a 410mm diameter drum with a 210mm spacing, which is also the shortest nominal chop length.
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