Cereal harvesting days... machinery has changed a lot

A few months ago, we visited our friend Manolo who showed us an old Fahr M77ES combine... it is a real gem. Farming machinery has changed a lot and specially combines which have changed from this model that began to work in the 60’s.

We have published some posts about Claas Dominator, Medion and Lexion combines, talking about the fantastic New Holland CX and TX Series or about nice Deutz-Fahr 6095 HTS, but when you see an old combine it is special and we think, how we could work with it (it hasn't cab, air conditioning, electronic control units to command the combine,...) in the Spanish summers with 40 degrees of temperature. Maybe, it was really hard but it should be better than the age when farmers harvested manually using only a sickle.

Obviously the change has been very important and farmers have greatly improved in comfort when we are working. We have gone from a completely manual management on combine harvester of 2 meter working width, mechanical transmission, hoppers under 1,000 litres,... to it is commanding electronically (self-leveling cuttebars up to 12 metrer working width, autoguidance system by GPS, performance sensors,...), hydrostatic transmission, hoppers over 10,000 litres,...

These days, we are harvesting cereals and pulse vegetables. This year, definitely, it is special because our yields are being really good. It has been raining from sowing tasks (it rained 350mm approximately in our area) and yields, e.g., winter barley are being about 6,000 kg/ha. They are great news because the last two years were very poor.

Versión en español.

If you plant trees... not forget the subsoiler

Today, tree crops are in fashion in Spain. Maybe, cereals and pulse vegetables doesn't have an important profitability and almond trees, olive trees, vineyard,... have great benefits. We are going to speak about how you can plant a new vineyard or how we changed our old olive trees for new olives trees. In our area, a lot of farmers are planting almond trees... a few days ago, the owner of a nursery which is near our village said that he has already sold his whole almond trees production of the next three years.

If you would like to plant trees, the best practice for that is to carry out a depth working with the aim of breaking the compacted soil. It is going to help trees' roots to grow quickly, it favours the formation of water reserves in depth and significantly reduces the stagnation of the water in the surface. We perform this work every 4 or 5 years in our fields where we sow cereal, sunflowers or pulse vegetables... we think it is a good practice.

As you can see in our picures, you can use different tools for this work. Some years ago, the most common implement was a giant plough. Our friend Jesús Ángel (from Motilla del Palancar - Cuenca) sent us some pictures of his Massey Ferguson working with a big plough. Nowadays, the most common tool for this work is the subsoiler. The Spanish Gascón International brand has a large range of these implements. Astrea subsoiler highlights because it has a hydropneumatic non stop system that allows us to regulate trigger using oil pressure. It is ideal, e. g., for outsourcing companies who are working in different fields (hard, clayey or stony fields) because they can increase the trigger sensitivity (lowering pressure oil circuit) to prevent possible breaks in the implement or even on the tractor.

Versión en español.

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