XtraBlatt Issue 02-2020

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ON-FARM 1 2 3 1 Because ideal cutting and curing windows in the hay season for quality horse forage are relatively short, the brothers apply a machinery fleet that ensures highest harvesting capacity. 2 The main enterprise on Oberberghof is a horse pension. 3 Hay and straw are almost exclusively pressed into square bales. two American miniature ponies and two Deutsche ponies share the paddocks.” OWN FORAGE Alongside a riding hall and another all-weather riding facility, both of which feature special textile-mix floor surfaces, the facilities include a solarium, a horse exercising system and bad weather paddocks with sand floors. “Our grandfather also started a riding school”, recalls Florian Kneer. “Nowadays, however, we’re purely a horse pension, although a certified groom on the payroll offers riding lessons and trains horses. We have a second employee for feeding, mucking and carrying out other jobs around the yard.” While many stud farms buy-in their feed, the Kneers prefer home-grown forage. “We harvest hay, haylage and silage, although the silage is sold off the farm. Straw is bought in the swath from other farmers. We bale it ourselves with large square balers also used for our hay baling. For the haylage and silage, a round baler with plastic foil binding is put to work. We’ve had good experiences with this system.” One of the two large square balers is a Krone BiG Pack 1270 VC with multiblade cutting system. Now, one might think that such high technology might make more sense on a dairy farm, and rather less so with horses. Moritz Kneer argues against this: “For over 90 % of the straw, we bale for horse litter with all 51 knives fitted. The great advantage is that the chopped litter is more moisture-absorbent and makes for easier and cleaner mucking-out. On top of this, the resultant dung is a better fertiliser, degrading faster in the soil. Initially, we had our doubts about chopping, the litter looking less comfortable as bedding to our customers. But the advantages mean we have never had negative feedback.” WORK CAPACITY WISHED FOR The mowing machinery mainly hails from Emsland too. A front-rear combination without conditioner is used for smaller parcels. For larger fields, a rear-mounted butterfly mower from another manufacturer. “The decision for the Krone F 400 CV front mower was because of its 4 m working width. We need that here because, among other points, it gives an overlapping action especially useful on side slopes”, explains Moritz Kneer. A pulled KW-T 1300 teds hay. The brothers are very satisfied with this. It’s extremely manoeuvrable, even in small areas, and still offers high work capacity – very important for main forage hay. Quality hay means that, within the small time-slot,all crop should be turned, especially important for first cut. For the same reason, a suitably dimensioned 4-rotor swather, a Swadro 1400 Plus, is also on the inventory. “At first we had a side-swather, then a central delivery swather, running both of them for a period”, recalls Moritz Kneer. “Now all the work is carried out by a single machine. Optically, it gives the impression of great size although in reality it’s just as agile as a two-rotor side swather and is especially suitable for collecting grass cleanly out of corners.” The Krone products, incidentally, all come from the firm Steinbrenner in Wörnitz, which also takes care of service and maintenance. This is despite the workshop being around two hours’ drive from the farm. Says Florian Kneer: “We got to know this dealership because we were contract harvesting nearby. Especially with more complicated machinery such as our large square balers, the team working around Willy Waldmann and workshop master Stefan Sarke impressed us so much that we’ve stayed with them. The work is either done in the dealership facilities or sometimes back on our farm.” THREE CUTS Hay and straw are harvested from around 450 ha, the large square balers produce some 6,000 bales per season, the round baler managing between 3,000 and 3,500 bales. Most of the machinery and implements at Oberberghof are also used on other farms. “We’ve always aimed to have spare machinery capacity”, points out Florian Kneer. “This is because for feeding horses we can only use the very best forage. The same applies to the straw litter. To enable fast and flexible work we started in 2005 with our first big machine, a large square baler. Neighbours then increasingly asked if we could also bale for them on a contract basis. This enterprise has steadily expanded.” As a rule, three forage cuts are made on grassland, the first exclusively for hay, the second, depending on weather and growth, for öhmd (the local term for aftermath hay) and/or silage and the third for silage only. Mainly, the last cut takes place mid-October with the brothers careful that the sward doesn’t go into winter too long because this gives best conditions for field mouse overwintering. Haying mostly starts in mid- June. Work peaks can mostly be spaced out well because the contracting dairy farms have differing harvest times, although this year haying proved a non-stop operation for two entire weeks. On their own fields, Florian and Moritz Kneer aim for a high-quality mix of grass and herbs in their leys. Deliberately, they’ve stayed clear of stewardship schemes that lay down limited mowing times because they like full control of their haying operation. They’ve had the experience that some weeds in the sward have multiplied massively during recent dry years. Their answer: rolling, tine harrowing and reseeding. Brought-in for the control of poisonous pasture weed saffron crocus is a prism roller. STAYING FLEXIBLE Part and parcel of horse farming is the production of solid manure from litter and its spreading. Used for this is a 24 t, 22 m³ Annaburger spreader. For contracted and own silage, maize and chopped forage transport, a Krampe hooklift trailer has been invested in. When asked about the rather smaller transport capacity with the body-swap system, Moritz Kneer explains that flexibility is more important, with both skip and flatbed bodies used. The flatbed platform is also used transporting construction and landscape-care machinery including mobile backhoe, tree-grip attachment, tracked mower and tractor for steep slopes – all used in the brothers’ contracting enterprise. “A further big advantage is that we can use the trailer at speeds up to 60 km/h (36 mph) on the road, pulled by an Agrar-Unimog or a Fendt 926. We’ve been driving Unimogs for a very long time. They’re maybe not optimal for all farm jobs but we like them a lot: they’re low-wear with economic fuel consumption and high road speeds.” The rest of the tractor fleet comprises mainly Fendt machines, some of them getting on in years, but all in top condition. While it’s true Oberberghof is not the main enterprise in the Kneer business, it is run very professionally indeed. And listening to the brothers’ considerations on purchasing decisions, their experiences with machinery and other technical details makes it clear that both are farmers with great passion and therefore real professionals, with an amateur love of the land! « 36 37
TELEGRAM NEWS TICKER BEST MARKS How satisfied are farm machinery dealerships with the makes they sell and service? This is the question asked by the dealerships’ professional organisation in Germany, the LandBauTechnik Bundesverband e.V. (LBT), of all farm machinery selling members in spring 2020. The answer is unequivocal: Krone is top of the preference list with an average 16.7 points. Dealers could vote on a scale from 0 (very poor) to maximum 20 points. AGRIROUTER WINS A PRIZE The platform agrirouter wins the Digitalisation Prize Agrar und Ernährung (Agriculture and Food), Lower Saxony. This data platform, developed by DKE Data GmbH& Co. KG, enables farmers and agricultural contractors to exchange data between machinery and agricultural software applications from different manufacturers. Krone is one of the NEW KRONE TRAINEE COURSE At the beginning of the new training year in August, 41 trainees and dual course students were officially welcomed and gathered for a group photograph according to corona rules, resulting in a slightly unusual perspective. THE SUMMER PHOTO 2020 TOP AGAIN 13 BIG PACK founding members of agrirouter. In a widespread poll answered by readers of several German specialist magazines, Krone repeated its success of the previous year being once again awarded top place in the category “Trailer Cover/Curtainsider”. Almost 50 % of the total 8,125 poll participants voted Krone as best. ......balers were sold all at once by the Australian Krone partner Echuca CIH, including 11 HDP machines. Good weather conditions including spells of continuous rainfall resulted in an above-average harvest in the state of Victoria this year. TX ON THE ROAD Agrolohn Müritz this summer collected two TX 560 D trailers in Spelle and towed them by road all the way back to Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. The home journey took the tractor and trailer teams around 9 h. comes from Australia and captures a Premos pellet harvester in action with the backdrop of a breathtakingly beautiful sunset in the state of Victoria. NL FIELD TRAINING IN RETIREMENT Aloys Schnelte (65), commercial director Under strict corona protection regulations of the Krone Commercial Vehicle Group the team from Krone Netherlands & celebrates his retiral. The business admin- Belgium carried out four exclusive field istration graduate worked for the company training sessions for sales personnel and since 1991, initially as head of the control mechanics from all Krone dealerships in department in the agricultural machinery the two countries. Presented at the events factory and then also in the commercial were the respective new introductions for vehicle division from 1999. STRONG TURN OVER DESPITE CORONA Krone Group turnover for the business season 2020/2021. TOUR DE FRANCE Krone France was on demonstration tour this harvest covering 12 regions with the same number (12) of VariPack Plus balers. Whether STUDENT VISITS ONLINE The Krone training team has been available during regular online sessions to answer questions from career-interested year 2019/2020 ending end of July lay by hay or straw, netting or twine, small swaths or schoolchildren – and their parents too. approx. 1.9 billion €. While commercial big ones – the VariPacks were able to master all Nowadays, video conferences are already vehicle division results were substantial- situations successfully and impress innumer- well-known to schoolchildren through ly impacted by corona, Krone agricultural able customers and other interested parties their home schooling. This familiarity machinery division in fact increased with the performance achieved by the high probably influenced the high attendance annual turnover. density balers, and their ease of operation. for the on-screen sessions. 38 39
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