MOWING 1ST CUT SILAGE

Howdy folks, how we doing? So yeah we've got the mar on the tractor. I did actually look at getting the fast track on here so we could leave this on the baler but as is typical with the older fast track 3000 series range the back end geometry is not correct so take these link arms for example where the pivot point is for these is a good 12 inches beyond the PTO stub so nice short PTO goes on there a treat come to the fast track and this was always a problem with them see there's your pivot almost a couple of inches in line with the PTO stub so hence when we put the mower on I knew it was probably going to be an issue PTO was Well, basically it was wobbling around, you know, it was only holding on by about an inch. It's obviously no good. We've had to have a longer PTO. So we could have had the fast track on, but as is the way, they don't fit. So anyway, we will get fired up. Yeah, lift it up. Get out of here. Come up like that. Just angle it over it. Keeps that that far offside. Just pulls it in a little bit. otherwise it does just stick outside the line of the tractor and of course it's you know it's like having a five-hour plow on the back you have got to watch you know turning in places like because there's quite a bit of swing there all right you pull the bit of rope that swaps the valve over so you can swing it around like so let that go and then you get the offset type thing that you get on these pottingers. I've just got to check the top link. That looks a bit leveller. We'll try that I think. Just lock that off. Right so. Yeah, there's that other ram that does that. So, yeah, it's got a solid machine this pottinger. I think it's its fourth year the farm's had it lot. And I shouldn't really say it, but touch wood. not be any bother at all so yeah it does seem like you know she's a good heavy duty mower anyway let's get her sparked up aircon on let's have a bit of a bit of air drop her down into f2 oh we're in park have a look how deep we are cutting let's make her off a sec deep we're cutting what does that even mean yeah that's all right this is actually this um field did feature on a video a few years ago as one of the most awkward fields to plough you've got this track runs up the center here you can just about sort of see it you know we're still on the track now and then um yeah you've got an odd shape bit here you've got a little bit of short bit here to the top headland then you've got another um you know uh irregularly shaped bit pile on it it's quite fast to plough anyway But yeah, that looks alright, we'll crack on. There's a decent bit of grass in places in here. Especially over this side here that we've done first. Seems to tail off a little bit this side like. But yeah, a bit of an honour to do some mowing. Don't often get to do it like. But yeah, second time I've had this mower on. No, I have had this on before. Or have I? Yes, no, I have done. I've done one field with this before. It's a good width this Nova Cat, it's three and a half metres. I could do with another hand because I'm holding the camera. Even though it's only a rear mower, we haven't got a front one on here. Well this hasn't got PTO this tractor anyway. But even so, three and a half metres, it is doing a fair width per pass. But it is a big of a field. We've got a nice bit of you know straight work here we had quite a bit of short work over there we've got a load of short work behind us there we've got a bit of short work there we've got short work the other side of this track yeah it's not it's not the nicest it feels like especially when you're doing stuff like this mowing plowing that sort of stuff next field we've got is a bit more square so there shouldn't be as much in in the next one that's just meadow grass this is the first year lay and it's done yeah it's done pretty well considering you know how dry it's been for the past two months like you know a nice wet winter but when it come dry it stay dry we had eight mil the first rain we've had in like six to eight weeks was last weekend i think this weekend something like that anyway we've got eight mil so it put you know I've perked the grasses up on that sort of stuff a little bit like, you know, the grazing grasses. But we could do with a bit more. Well, we could do with a lot more actually, to be fair. So, now we're taking a bit of this, you know, a bit of this grass off. I'll start chucking a bit of slurry about as well, I think, to help it grow. But yeah, we could do with some good, you know, a good few days with just some nice steady rain, like, just to pepper everything up again, like. Because yeah, I don't suppose there'll be much in the next field which is meadow grass. We'll see. And tomorrow when we get back or in the morning we'll drop this mower off, put the baler back on this tractor and yeah, we'll go and bail what was mowed yesterday. The mower obviously hasn't... I think it's the first time the mower's been on this tractor. Hence the mower's not set up on the auto steer. And I was going to... quickly set it up but I haven't got a tape measure with me I need to know the offset because obviously it is offset you know it's over there so you do need to put your offset in like so I'll give that up as a bad job you really need to be fairly accurate like it's roughly three metre offset but I'm not sure so not without tape measure so we're steering the old-fashioned way wiggly woggly but Yeah, we're doing 13, 14k quite happily. Yeah, certainly this Pottinger is a good solid mower anyway. Leaves a nice job. Just need two more of them. I've never had the pleasure of triples. Done a fair bit with the front and rear, but never triples. And when I first went out with the front mower on, as well as the rear, I was like, oh my god. This is the way to mow. But I suspect when you've got triples on it, it's even more that's the way to mow lot. You know. That's this field done. 15 odd acres. The next one is... What's the next one? Eight. Something like that. Roughly about eight, I think. Get you down. Stop tractor. As you're told. Look around the old... No, look around everything. Come on. I wouldn't make a cowboy, would I? Look around the gate. Oh yes, look at that. Right, pull that. Round we go. Smashing. No, don't do that. Lift that all the way up. Crank that over. Just lift it up. Oh dear. Blimey, everything's hurting. What am I doing? No, what the hell? Just press the cruise button. I don't know what I'm doing. That's the bottom we want, to get onto F3, which is the preset. Show you so you got f1 f2 and f3 there they're like They're like gears if you know what I mean, but it limits your top speed so f1 Is set at 12k minutes as far as you can go in f1 f2 is what we've been working in is set at 21 and F3 is obviously 53 for a maximum maximum speed on the road so Yeah, those presets they just give you a bit more control So you imagine like, say you're in F1, it's up to 12km, a little push of the stick forward might be 1km an hour. But when it's up to 53km an hour, you've got that bigger range, that little push might be 5km. So it just gives you a little bit more, like I say, a bit more control. So, swing now back out. There's a fair bit of grass in here as well for meadow grass. I'll just drop you down a little bit somewhere there PTO engage increase that revs we're away yeah it's quite a surprising amount of grass here and it's only been fertilized it hasn't been I haven't been around with any pud so we might get some better yields than we did last year no guarantees because I mean last year was poor wasn't it I mean really poor but yeah Yeah, first cut don't look too bad from what I've seen anyway, look. But second cut, all depends whether we get any rain, doesn't it, look? That is the deciding factor. One thing's for sure, this blooming old tractor is a right old heffalump. Such a poor turning circle on it. For the size of tractor, I mean, it's not the biggest tractor in the world, look, but it sure hasn't got a great steering look on it. Like I say, I reckon Fast Track's better. My Fast Track's got a better lock on it and that is saying something because they are not good. A carbon copy of last year really, isn't it, but there's a lot of folk in the same predicament. You see the cows? They've been milked and this is their furthest meadow. That one we've just seen there and there's not a lot of grass there, look. We need a lot of grass there. So, yeah. I mean, there's supposed to be showers this afternoon. Stroke this evening, but don't look very likely. It doesn't look very likely. But we're going to go around this pesky pile on now a couple of times. Keep away from the concrete base. Come on, tractor. So awful turning, it's a little bit. Last couple of passes. We are done. Go home and have some tea. We've got a few tractors coming up that we're going to be looking at, obviously. We're still going to be looking at the X7624 McCormick. Still really looking forward to that. Could have been lovely on this mower. So we'll get that organised. We'll have a look at that. Also, we'll see JCB Fast Track 6300s. are now with dealers so we'll be having a look at one of them very soon and the newer versions of these 225s the New Orleans I don't think they're out at dealers yet but the dealers have been having training so hopefully it won't be too long before we have a look at one of the new ones of these as well Yeah, well actually I'll tell you what I did see, Oliver Ragg. They've got the new class, the new class facelifted tractors. Well they've got the, is it 260 horsepower? 960 or whatever it is. As well as the Xerium. I saw you post the other day that they've got them ready for demo. So we might have to have a look at one of the new facelifted classes as well. Just swinging the old mower back into transport. That's that. Lift her up. Right, we are away. Anyway, look at all that lovely grass. So yeah, we'll be in here in a couple of days to bow this up. Got some baling to go out tomorrow. Yeah, anyway, there we go. I hope you enjoyed that little vid. I'll see you on the next one. Ta-ta!

Mowing with New Holland 225 and Pottinger Novacat 350