Customer Testimonials

Dengie Crops at Asheldham in Essex is the biggest fibre feed company in the UK. The farmer co-operative started growing grass for pelleting as a winter cattle feed over 40 years ago, and is now the UK’s largest producer of lucerne (alfalfa), the majority of which is used in the company’s leading horse feed range.

As part of the new system for harvesting this protein rich crop, Dengie has invested in a John Deere 7450i self-propelled forage harvester equipped with the HarvestLab dry matter sensor, which was bought from dealer P Tuckwell Ltd at Rayleigh for the 2009 harvest season.

The forager’s infinitely variable length of cut (IVLOC) transmission combines with HarvestLab to enable the operator to change chop length on the move, or provide automatic adjustment of the length of cut depending on the dry matter content of the crop being harvested, based on settings programmed into the in-cab GreenStar display.

“We decided to adapt our harvesting system in order to reduce costs,” explains Bob Turner, Dengie’s field & dryer operations manager. “We like the crop to be at a lower moisture content before taking it to the drying plant. Using the new John Deere forager, we know the moisture content in the field and have an idea of the total yield, so this helps in two ways.

“Firstly, we can manage the drying plant better – we aim to keep it running 24 hours a day during the harvest, and because we know exactly how much crop has to go through the plant in that time, we therefore know how much of the crop we need to get in each day.

“Secondly, it keeps the moisture content of the crop going into the plant at a consistent level, so we don’t have to alter the drying temperature too much, which also saves on fuel costs. If you have a shower overnight, for example, you can send the machine out to the field in the morning and know the moisture content after just 100 yards, so you don’t have a lorry load going off to the plant at a very high moisture level.”

The crop is cut three times during the season, at seven week intervals. Depending on the weather, the first cut usually starts at the end of April or early May and the plant continues running until the end of October. Drilled in the autumn or spring, lucerne is normally grown for three years before rotation, mostly into wheat, which benefits from the naturally occurring nitrogen left in the soil. There is generally a six or seven year break between lucerne crops in the same field.

Dengie uses a Krone Big M 9m triple mower to cut the crop – if it’s green and lush, it’s allowed to dry for 24 hours or so, otherwise it’s only left for about six hours. After rowing up, the crop is chopped by three John Deere self-propelled forage harvesters equipped with standard 3m pick-ups – two three year old 7400 500hp models and the new 560hp 7450i – which pull 24m³ capacity Solus trailers.

These are then emptied into a fleet of six lorries, each taking two trailer loads back to the drying plant. Peak output in heavy yielding crops is around 150 acres a day, producing around three tonnes of dry matter per acre.

“Another advantage of the John Deere IVLOC system is that it gives us a longer chop length than some other makes of forager,” says Bob Turner. “In lucerne, we like to maintain a chop length of around 17 to 19mm – nutritionists generally recommend a longer chop nowadays, as animals take longer to chew the feed and this is better for their digestive system.

“We’ve been using John Deere foragers for over 10 years now and they do the job very well. They’re easy to work on, and we have a very good relationship with Tuckwells, who provide an excellent back-up service. We will replace the two older machines with “i” specification models in due course, which will help the whole system become even more efficient.”

September 2009