topliner

Last year saw a major revamp of the SsangYong Musso and an upgrade to Mitsubishi’s L200. The Musso gained new underpinnings and a fresh interior from the company’s Rexton SUV, along with a seven-year, 150,000-mile warranty. Meanwhile a stronger rear frame lifted the L200’s towing capacity to 3.5t, although this applies only when pulling a tri-axle braked trailer; otherwise the limit stays at 3.1t.

North American arable farmers are finding it increasingly difficult to recruit seasonal tractor drivers for a few hundred hours of harvest chaser bin work. But help is now at hand in the form of plug-and-play driverless technology called AutoCart, which is believed to be the first time a farmer can take a tractor, make it driverless, and then with the flick of a switch drive it like a normal tractor.

Tractor Mother Regulations (see profi 01/2018) caused a right old hoo-ha at the beginning of last year and, for the most part, there were very few changes that actually benefitted the user. One item that did is a new option to decelerate a tractor without tapping the brake pedal.

For the past two years, Farb Guidance Systems has quietly run six Cat 299D skid steers in the Pacific North West, and it reckons to have logged over 2,000 hours of operation and covered around 8,000ha (20,000 acres) of mainly wheat, OSR and potato land. We caught up with three of the six machines, along with company president and founder Dave Farb, in a field in Iowa for a demo of these unusual vehicles.

If you’re looking to play safe and go with the UK mainstream, you’ll struggle to pick a couple of more popular mid-sized 4x4s than the Land Rover Discovery Sport and Volvo’s XC60. They’re literally everywhere. Sadly, however, 'in the mainstream' doesn’t necessarily equate to low cost, with both of these in their tested form leaving little change, if any, out of £50,000. Granted, there’s clearly the option to head down the nearly-new route or settle for a lower-spec 2WD variant — the Discovery Sport starts at around £31,500, the XC60 £39,000 — whereas, if on an even bigger budget, you can load up with extras and inflate the final onroad bill to north of £60,000.

Drought-baked, impenetrable heavy land in 2019 proved a real challenge for short disc harrows. Köckerling’s solution is a more aggressive disc system for the Rebell, which will be particularly appealing to those on heavy soils. Last summer we had the opportunity to use one of the first four prototypes in wheat stubble ... to see what the changes bring to the cultivation party. This is the first time Köckerling has abandoned its traditional leaf spring disc protection and replaced it with a coil spring design. These springs are tensioned to absorb up to 200kg, which should help the Rebell Classic to penetrate to a uniform depth.

Before the introduction of the latest 7700S models, the 7718 was the most powerful of the trio of short

wheelbase six-cylinder Masseys. According to the brochure stats, it's rated at 121kW/165hp and develops a maximum of a whopping 200hp during pto work or when travelling over 15km/hr. Our tractor owner has been more than happy with the overall performance of the test candidate.

We were suitably impressed with the F440R during our 10/2013 driving impression. Since then, and highlighting that there's always room for improvement, John Deere has updated its fixed-chamber baler range with the mid-spec 441M and professional F441R. Yet it is the combi machine, the C441R, which not only benefits from the baler updates but also a revised wrapping system, that has the most to shout about and, as a result, features as the subject of this driving impression.

Krone had a stab at making a self-propelled round baler a decade ago, but Vermeer is the first firm to create a concept that combines the drive unit and baler into a compact 6.29m long x 3.60m wide x 3.10m high package. Called the ZR5, essentially what the Iowa-based firm has done is take one of its 605N eight-belt balers and modify it to work hydraulically.

The Health and Safety Executive will be happy to confirm that mounting and dismounting a tractor can present a major risk of straining a muscle or injuring an ankle. To reduce the risks, German firm Grifa has come up with the Softstep ladder. This positions the bottom step just 250mm from the ground instead of the usual 400-600mm. Climbing onto the machine the operator stands on the lower step, and it automatically rises nearly 500mm. The second from last step forms part of this up and down moving arrangement.