The topic for this month’s Power on the Land is hedging, fencing and forestry equipment, brought to you as always by Mike Williams.
The McConnel 55-Series power arms are ideal for hedgecutting.
Providing field boundaries that are safe and secure is one of the management priorities on livestock farms, and recent machinery developments include improvements that can help to boost efficiency and reduce the workload required for hedge and fence maintenance.
A fencing job that has been eased by mechanisation improvements is post erection – a demanding task in the days of hand-operated post drivers. Powered equipment has taken over most of the post driving required for professional fence erection and repair work on farms and estates, with the Derbyshire-based Wrag company offering a comprehensive range of post drivers.
Wrag started making post drivers suitable for farm use 30 years ago, and most of the models in its current range are in the Powerswing range – suitable for mounting on the rear of a tractor and working with five different hammer weight options ranging from 100–500kg.
The Wrag product range also includes additional equipment linked to fencing work, and the list includes net unrolling attachments, there is a range of rock spikes to help prepare for post positioning in hard or stony soil conditions, and Wrag also offers special post drivers designed for attachment to tractor front loaders or to skid-steer loaders.
An addition to the standard range of Wrag post drivers is the self-propelled Tow-IT series models. The Tow-IT model is based on a tractor unit designed and manufactured by the company and powered by a 36hp Yanmar engine.
The engine powers a two-speed transmission which drives a pair of tracks to provide the pulling power to move the post driver, and the engine power also operates post driving. Wrag developed the TOW-IT to increase operator safety and boost efficiency for fencing work, especially in difficult site conditions such as steep land.
Specification updates for the Kestrel Power Plus include a power boost to 65hp.
Bomford Turner is a long-established company with more than 100 years of farm machinery development that began in the age of steam power, but its present-day products include world-leading remote control technology used in its Flailbot machinery range.
The remote control feature allows the Flailbot vehicles to be managed by signals from an operator using the joystick on a handheld control unit. This means the operator does not have to be on the vehicle – a significant safety benefit when the machine is working in a high-risk situation such as hill farming areas, and the operator and the control unit can be up to 150m away from the Flailbot vehicle.
The engine outputs for the remotely controlled vehicles are in the 23–70hp range, and a two-speed transmission provides a 7kph maximum forward speed. The special vehicles are used mainly for rotary or flail mowing, but snow blowing, stump grinding and spraying attachments are also available.
While the Flailbot is designed for a highly specialised sector of the machinery market, most of the Bomford Turner sales are achieved with more familiar products, including its popular range of reach arm mowers deigned for professional hedgecutting on farms and in amenity and highway situations, and they are also used for verge mowing.
The reach arm mower range offers a huge choice of specifications, starting with the Robin series available with 3.4 or 4.3m reach and with parallel linkage included in the standard specification, and the flagship model is the Eagle with a reach arm that can work with 1.2, 1.5 or 2.0m width cutting head options.
The Eagle has an 8.0m maximum reach and it is designed with an arm that can be slewed through 180 degrees to give left- or right-side working. The landscaping machinery list also includes flail mowers and pasture toppers, there is a machinery range for forestry work and Bomford Turner also offers a list of cultivation implements.
F W McConnel is another of the British-based companies that has achieved success, with a product range that features a large selection of reach arm machines for hedge and verge maintenance. It was among the pioneers of this type of machinery, introducing its first reach arm machine in the 1940s when it was mounted on a Fordson tractor to demonstrate the performance of the cutterbar.
Its reach arm range is said to offer the biggest choice of machines available, currently amounting to 12 different series and providing 42 models – but this is just a part of the reach arm picture because the McConnel company also offers the flexibility to provide thousands of different build options including one-off specifications to meet individual customer requirements.
There is also an additional but much smaller reach arm series recently introduced under the Twose brand name. Twose was a long-established UK-based machinery company which is now owned by McConnel, and the brand name is being preserved. As well as reach arm machines, the McConnel range also includes cultivation implements and flail mowers, while the most impressive product is the self-propelled model at the top of its sprayer range.
The Stihl MS231 chainsaw is a popular choice for farm work.
The increase in the price of heating oil and other fuels has brought renewed interest in using firewood as a domestic heating fuel, and many farms have home-grown timber available that can be used as firewood.
This has prompted interest in saws suitable for producing logs for burning, and one of the leading manufacturers of saws for farm use is the Stihl company, which is based in Germany but has well-established product distribution and back-up services in the UK.
The Stihl range of petrol-powered cordless chainsaws includes a comprehensive choice of models with 30cm or 35cm bar length options, and a UK list price example is £318.99 for a 30cm chainsaw set that includes a battery and charger.
The potential supply of firewood on some farms includes tree branches that have been pruned to provide the extra clearance that may be needed to operate large machines such as combine harvesters, and the list of Stihl products includes pole pruners weighing about 7.9kg, which work with electric power and use telescopic adjustment to provide 5.0m maximum working height.
The long list of powered tools available from Stihl also includes the 900BR circular saw that has recently been updated with a new specification including increased power, more efficient sawdust clearance and the addition of an electric brake. The product range also includes brushcutters equipped with an 18hp electric motor and designed for pedestrian use to clear weed growth in areas near the farm yards and buildings that are inaccessible for tractor powered equipment.
Another source of pedestrian-operated equipment suitable for working in areas where lack of space restricts access for tractor powered equipment is the Makita product range.
It offers tools and machines that operate under manual or pedestrian control, and these include recent additions and product updates for its XGT 40VMAX range of outdoor equipment. The recent arrivals are designed for professional use in terms of specification and performance, and they include a selection of chainsaws with electric power plus the new UR002 brush cutter that features three speed settings for the cutting head, with a 6,500rpm maximum.
The chainsaw equipment list includes the Makita Automatic Torque Drive (ATD) feature that adjusts the speed of the cutting head to match variations in the work load, while the Active Feedback Sensing system (AFS) is designed to stop the cutting head in order to protect the operator from a kickback reaction if the brush has a sudden slowdown or stoppage. The UR002 can work with the Makita PDC01 or PDC1200 battery backpacks, and customers can also select from a choice of cutting units to suit a range of work requirements.
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