A fleet of three Fendt 700 Vario tractors, including the current Gen 6 model, has been the choice of Nairnshire farmer, Glen Allingham, at Craggie Farm.

The power to weight ratio of the tractors, coupled with onboard technology and Fendt’s stepless Vario transmission is helping him to precision plant and harvest 280 acres of pre-basic seed potatoes per year.

The CVT transmission has proved crucial to planting and harvesting the seed spuds accurately. An infinitely variable forward speed, governed largely by a pto speed of just 400rpm, makes for careful and controlled work.

The Fendt 720 that Mr Allingham operates himself, moves almost effortlessly at these speeds despite pulling a Grimme GT 170 harvester with a significant payload, not to mention members of his team on-board to check the quality of the crop.

“The farm has only used CVT transmissions. In the 1970s, we used a tractor with hydrostatic drive made by International Harvester, now Case IH. The same principle as the Vario was achieved, it was way ahead of its time," said Mr Allingham.

"The CVT helps us to control the tractor and we are doing mostly pto work, so using the foot pedal I can maintain pto speed whilst regulating the forward speed.”

The team acts as a multiplier unit for seed potatoes, taking varieties from 10 different seed merchants as ‘mini-tubers’ to plant. Mr Allingham reflected that a large proportion of the UK’s seed potatoes varieties were bred in Europe, notably in the Netherlands.

“We believe in working with British breeders who want to bring new varieties to market that have been grown in our climate and suit our soils. Nairnshire is remarkably dry, much like the south-east of England, which reduces problems with bacterial and fungal disease.

"We also benefit from being far enough north to reduce the threat of aphids which makes the farm a unique proposition for testing varieties,” he argued.

Technology for greater precision

The precision of the work is aided by FendtGuide, the GPS RTK system, which runs on all three of the 700 series tractors. This enabled Mr Allingham to control every aspect of the growing process, with data shared between the three tractors to enable pinpoint accuracy when sowing, fertilising, spraying, and harvesting the crop.

“Steering by eye is not accurate enough. We pay a license fee of between £750 and £900 per tractor and it is worth every penny. The Fendt system is so accurate that it can even mark the stones in our soil to protect the machinery and the crop," he said.

"We haven’t extended to running GPS on implements, as that is a level of accuracy that the crop doesn’t really command.”

The technology is shared between the three tractors, despite the oldest being five years old. Longevity is very much part of his ownership strategy following the return on investment he received from his first two Fendt tractors, which were both purchased used.

“We started with second-hand Fendts because we felt they were too expensive new. We had two 700s with more than 5000 hours and ran them for another 3000 hours. The 716 covered 3000 hours in three years and it only lost £9000 in value, and it was a similar story with the 722 we purchased.”

This alleviated any concerns that Fendts would be too expensive to run and he began to appreciate the nature of the investment that had been made. However, he suggested that the residual value is not as important as the operational efficiencies and accuracy the Fendts offered.

“To compare with the car world, a Rolls Royce doesn’t do much more than a Ford, but a Fendt does a lot more for us than a standard tractor. We have never doubted the tractors and the support from Ross Agri has been unfaltering.

"We keep the tractors for 10 years and 10,000 hours and the trade-in value is still very good, but the work they do is even better,” he said.

New generation

He now operates a 720 Profi Plus on an '18' plate, a 724 Profi Plus on a '19' plate, and a Gen 6 720 on a '71' plate, all purchased new from Ross Agri Services.

The combination gave relative parity of design and operation, although the newest model benefits from the FendtONE operating system. It is operated by Gavin Forsyth, who explained that FendtONE was a significant step up from the Gen 5 machines:

“The old arm was good, but the new one is better, especially for section control work," he said. "The new joystick has extra buttons so I can work in joystick mode continually, which is much easier and more precise.

"The GPS works everywhere and is very easy to use. The tractor is quiet and the way the two screens are set up, I don’t have to flick through so many pages. I didn’t think they could make a great tractor any better, but they have.”

He used the tractor’s VarioDoc to map where each variety of potato is. It transfers data to a field database via GPRS at any time, regardless of where he is operating, to make it available for use by him or the other tractors in the fleet.

“When we prepare the potato fields, the first job is to map and plough – we then decide on how to ridge and what depth to work at. We plough at one angle and ridge in another, so I put the data on a memory stick and share it between the tractors to enable them to follow the correct lines,” explained Mr Forsyth.

The cost of fertiliser has also led the farm to operate with section control to provide greater precision at the headlands and he considered the FendtONE system to have streamlined the set-up process for this work significantly.

“We can’t afford to have wastage and as we have so many varieties, we can’t afford not to be precise. When planting, there is so much going on that it’s nice to know the technology is working for me in the background.

"I could do this with any tractor, but the Fendts are easier and I feel the technology is streets ahead. The GPS is never wrong and has never let us down, it works in weak signal areas and is very accurate, which is of paramount importance for potatoes,” he concluded.