Many manufacturers involved in the grassland machinery sector are trending towards mounted rather than trailed mowers.
Last week’s National Ploughing Championships in Ireland saw new ‘butterfly’ units appear, for example, at the bigger end of the scale. Some dealers’ yards, it has been reported, are filling up with (older) trailed units, which were taken as trade-ins from contractors.
Into this seemingly inauspicious environment, Malone Farm Machinery has launched two new trailed mower-conditioners. A brave move it might initially be thought, but the company is confident of selling the machines to farmers rather than contractors.
The larger of the two is the Procut 3000 which has, as its name suggests, a 3m cutting width.
The manufacturer expects this to be the most popular. Its smaller sibling – the Procut 2600 – has a 2.6m cutting width.
In transport position, the effective width is reduced by 7cm in each case.
Common to both models is the built-in drive-line protection system, which is provided by mounting the discs on hubs (pictured below) that are designed to shear before any damage is caused to the gear-train.
The gearbox and cutter-bed (disc-bed) are manufactured by Comer of Italy.
The minimum power requirement for each model is reportedly just 60hp and 70hp, respectively – making them suitable for lighter tractors (that might not have the stability or strength in the rear-end to cope with equivalent-width mounted units).
However, 90hp and 110hp are considered the optimum power to have up front. This matches the machines nicely to the typical tractors found on stock farms nowadays.
Despite aiming these two models squarely at the farmer, the company is also considering a front-mounted mower to compliment this pair.
This would obviously bring the offerings into the contractor sector which, given the number of higher-powered tractors about now, seems sensible.
