Hi everyone!
Welcome to Spring! all be it a rather damp one so far. Its probably not the dream start we were hoping for but there’s no doubting that we have enough moisture in the soil to see us through for a little while. The country is looking nice and green now the excess rain has drained away and with some warmer temperatures ahead there will be no shortage of feed around.
This month we have been preparing for harvest season, most branches have had a good influx of mowers, tedders, rakes, and balers arrive. The workshops have been busy finishing up winter service jobs and now are into pre-delivering tractors and harvest gear ready for a busy season ahead.
Our Northland branch has been playing musical chairs with tractors and machinery while our yard gets prepared for a big concrete pour. While it’s a slight inconvenience now it will be fantastic when its complete so, please bear with us while we work through the upgrade.
Another exciting new development for the group is the addition of Reiter belt mergers to our offering. These are at the very pointy end of forage harvesting and we are really looking forward to showing what they have to offer. Read more about Reiter below.
We all hope you have a great November, don’t work too hard! Blow the dust off the boat and enjoy the sunshine if you get an opportunity.
Regards,
Team Piako
*Piako Tractors Northland yard upgrade
Branch - Morrinsville
Role – Service Technician
Looking at David’s story I think its fair to say that he’s a man of the country, in both senses of the word. Growing up and working on the family farm in Quarry Hills in the Catlins, David has farm life in his DNA. David obviously has a great love for New Zealand too and served with the RNZAF as an aircraft engineer in the late 60’s and early 70’s.
In 1981 David found himself at the Massey Ferguson dealer in Ashburton working on Combines, Balers and Tractors getting the Fergie injection which then led to the opportunity to head to Western Australia putting his skills to work at another AGCO dealer working on the big Aussie gear.
In the early 2000’s home was calling, and David jumped on a plane bound for New Zealand and after a short period we managed to snap him up and add his wealth of knowledge to the Piako Group working at our Morrinsville branch.
Dave mentions he struggles to imagine no longer working on ag machinery and appreciates the places it has taken him and the people he has met.
For most of his life David has played rugby, looking at the teams he’s played for such as representing the NZ Airforce, Southern Southland rep rugby, Central Hawkes Bay and the mid-Canterbury 7’s it turns out working on agricultural machinery isn’t his only skill set! (Note to self, no friendly tackle competition with Dave at the Christmas party!).
Having a solid amount of life experience under his belt David encourages our younger followers to prepare early for your retirement, and to find a partner like he has in his wife Tricia. It’s their 50th anniversary in January next year and in Dave’s words, she has been his rock through his many life experiences.
Great to have you as part of the family David.
All branches have stock available of mowers, tedders, rakes, and balers ready for new homes. The new Massey TLV and Fendt TLX mowers are a favourite, they have excellent ground following capabilities and setup couldn’t be easier. Their ‘over centre’ vertical fold keeps the weight nice and central on the back of the tractor while in transit, so you don’t have to take a deep breath every time you turn into a corner.
Both brands also offer a great range of balers, starting at the Massey Ferguson 1840 conventional small square baler right through to the brand-new Fendt film on film combination baler which we are super lucky to have a demo machine available for this season.
The concept of a belt merger or belt rake was born from a need to improve forage quality by lessening contamination in the crop and especially to reduce leaf loss in lucerne crops. A biproduct of this style machine is that they form an incredibly even and fluffy windrow so, modern high-volume balers and forage harvesters can work at their top end potential. The Reiter Respiro range of machines are arguably the global leader in this technology.
So, what is it? In essence its a pickup from a baler that feeds the crop onto a belt (or set of belts) which then deliver the crop in a chosen direction. You can send all the crop to the left, to the right or have a centre delivery. As you can imagine for the R9 which is the largest machine in the range, this means you can put two passes with a set of triple mowers into one big windrow.
Another benefit of this machine is the speed that you can operate at due to their well supported design, they act more like a centre pivot linkage mower with suspension rather than a traditional rotor rake.
Probably the last major advantage is the pickup design means far less contamination do to the fact that the crop isn’t swept across the ground and potentially collecting dust and worm castings. So, by mid-summer these machines really come into their own.
The Respiro comes in a range of sizes and configurations, from the 3m front mount machine to the R6 & R7 reverse drive linkage machines perfect for the Valtra owners out there right up to the big R9 capable of 9m working width.
In summary,
• A much gentler collection of the crop due to the straight lifting action opposed to the sweeping action of a traditional rake. Particularly advantageous in crops such as lucerne.
• A cleaner crop as the crop isn’t swept across the ground collecting dust, worm castings etc.
• A higher working speed.
• Less ground damage due to better contouring ability.
• Fewer tine breakages and less tine wear compared to a rake due to the trailing tine design of the Reiter pickup.
Whether you’re a goat farmer needing premium feed and the 3m front mount is appealing or a contractor with thousands of hectares to get through and the R9 is the weapon of choice the Reiter Respiro is certainly worth closer inspection. Check the video out here https://piako.co.nz/reiter
