Machinery woes

Even a tirade on the iniquities of the growing gulf between what farmers on the ground make and the much-publicised performance of Scotland's food and drink sector doesn't seem to have much attraction after this year's long, drawn-out harvest and autumn sowing campaign.

So I thought we might have a wee gab about machinery.

Anyone who happened to pass the farm a couple of weeks ago might have been forgiven for thinking that we'd become very laid back about harvest - as the combine sat in the very last corner of the very last field for a couple of days, with only a round and a half left to cut.

But had they ventured up the road they would soon have realised that this apparent outbreak of manana was about as far from the truth as it was possible to be. A leading contender for this year's badly timed breakdown award, to be so close (yet somehow so far) from being finished the harvest was hard to bear.

Those with the insufferable habit of always looking on the bright side of things, though, did point out that it was probably better happening then rather than a round and a half into next year's harvest.

However, although the fact that the breakdown inevitably occurred in the evening, too late to get a bit ordered up for next day delivery, we were lucky that the weather held steady until the combine was repaired and we got the last half hour's work done.

The discussions with the manufacturer on whether or not the bearing on the radiator fan pulley should have gone on such a relatively new combine are, however, still on-going, more of which we might share with you at a later date.

Anyhoo, at the other end of the scale we're also in the position of having to try to justify the purchase of a new driller, as, although the old one still does a good enough job, it's beginning to get a bit long in the tooth for a front-line piece of machinery (and for us that means that it's well into its teens, rather than being a couple of years old).

With the money grain is selling at this year, though, it certainly doesn't seem to make viable economic proposition on paper - but I guess if you're in the game you've got to be able to play it.

To be fair to the machinery dealers they seem to be quite keen to get some metal on the ground and their willingness to supply a demonstrator might be a reflection of how quiet things are for them at the moment (a fact which played to our benefit when the plough decided to try to beat the combine in the badly timed breakdown stakes and fall apart as we tried to keep it ahead of the driller).

But as far as the drillers were concerned, one of the apparently unavoidable problems with demonstrators is that they are always the newest, biggest, top of the range models, complete with all the knobs and whistles on them like power-sapping hydraulic fans and radar-guns instead of metering wheels - rather than the lower "keep it simple, stupid" end of the range which we tend to frequent.

However I'm quite glad that the fields we've been testing them out on are well away from the roadside - because, as well as being supplied with every gizmo imaginable, nowadays they seem to be fitted with the latest in random number generators instead of reliable tramlining kits.

Often you could sit and watched the control boxes as they cycled through their complete repertoire in the course of a single run up the field.

These hi-tech electronic control boxes also have the unnerving habit of screeching like a parrot suffering from Tourette's syndrome at regular - or perhaps, more accurately, irregular - intervals and flashing up an ingeniously complex set of error codes, which necessitate a good ten minutes thumbing through the manual to discover what the problem is.

In the end, however, I discovered that switching the box off and then on again generally seemed to cure most complaints. True, it might have only required a few tweaks to get these teething problems into perfect working order but they didn't help sell the machines to me.

But it seems to be an increasingly common practice for new equipment of all types - from i-Phones to washing machines to agricultural machinery - having the final stage of product refinement carried out by the poor mugs who have forked out their hard-earned cash for them.

Following a "quick and dirty" development stage, products are released onto the market leaving the niggling wee problems to be solved by after sales service.

On a similar topic, while I'm not suggesting that everyone is involved in the same sort of underhand dealings as Volkswagen, I would also question some of the "environmental" credentials of new machinery as well.

Fitting agricultural engines with emission controls which are aimed at reducing particulates and pollutants in city centres is pretty pointless exercise out in the countryside - and, despite the claims on fuel efficiency, an increasing number of people are finding that meeting these standards end sup using more diesel, rather than less - which can't be environmentally friendly in the long run.

But all the problems might not come from the engines - the efficiency of working equipment doesn't necessarily go up as its size increases either…

The onset of some rain during a demo saw the old driller hitched to the second tractor and working from the other side of the field with the intention that they would meet in the middle.

To my surprise - and I guess the salesman's chagrin - even powered by a four cylinder tractor rather than our six pot which was on the trial driller, our old one was notching up a round and a half to each one completed by the top-spec demonstrator.

Now while I'd admit that the new one was probably doing a slightly neater job and, in truth, that it might have benefited from a few more horses under the bonnet of the tractor pulling it, but this side-by-side comparison certainly made me stop and consider .

More demos might follow - and while their newness and lack of wear and tear should mean they are less prone to suffering down-time for repairs (once the bugs have been knocked out of them!) as the combine showed, even that doesn't necessarily follow.

Anybody know where I can pick up a cheap sowing sheet?