In Seligenstadt we could see already that we had the lowest tare rate.
Big Six-> 4,8% = 4,4 t/ha
Next was Kleine Beet Liner large -> 6,8% = 6,2 t/ha
After that all others followed-up with a bigger gap, a tare rate between 9,2 and 15,8% = 8,4 – 14,5 t/ha (Grimme Maxtron 24,6% + 22,6 t/ha) -> that means that all others had 2 – 3 times more soil/dirt on the beet which is a cost factor for beet transport and harvesting capacities. Less soil in the bunker means more beet in the bunker/more beet on the tipp-trailer (less transport capacity in the field) This means a Big Six saves a lot of costs compared to the competitors, which harvest and transport 2-3 times more soil. Balanced to the bunker capacity these figures get again more interesting, because our competitors transport more soil per load, which means they need to unload more often than a Big Six to have the same beet output. German manufacturers argue, that all beet will be cleaned by the “Maus”. This is only true for Germany and UK (some others do this particular), not for many other countries. For countries in which all sugar beet are cleaned it is still a cost factor if the beet is dirty, also cleaning with the “Maus” cost money, more dirty beet to clean costs more money (fuel, capacity, wear, waiting trucks). If sugar beet get transported directly (or not cleaned after harvested) to the sugar factory, every loaded truck transports less beet if not harvested with Agrifac. For a 28t load we talk about 4% soil (Agrifac) per load, for all others (Holmer, Ropa, Grimme) we talk about 7,5 – 13% soil per load! How many additional trucks/transport does this way of harvesting cost? The farmer pays for this, don’t forget to tell this to the farmers.
No competitor can argue that the high amount of tare has something to do with their lifting depth – Agrifac lifted 10 cm deep, only Kleine lifted 14 cm deep, all others lifted with 10 cm or less (Holmer 6,5 cm, Ropa 7 cm).
Also the lifting speed from 5,5 to 6,6 Km/h is very much comparable. Big Six 5,9 Km/h – Ropa 5,5 and 5,8 Km/h – Holmer 6,6 Km/h.
Lifting depth + speed in competition = That means that our Big Six had the most efficient cleaning.
An additional effect is, that the best soil just stays in the field. It is not brought to the headlands, it is not transported to the sugar factories. If soil is transported to sugar factories, the factories have more costs for cleaning the beet in the factory, and the soil has to be stored for minimum 2 years in basins at the factory, because it is so named “contaminated soil”.
The average crop on the fields was 91,2 to/ha
Losses in total:
In fact that we were cleaning very good we had also some more losses, compared to our competitors
So we talk about 1,4 to 3,1% beet losses which we can reduce/avoid by using another performance of the Big Six, but we have to compare this to the high costs of tare. Away from the tests some representatives from sugar factories said that they wanted to have the beet like Agrifac cleans them (Dutch and Danish people), they were satisfied with the results they could see in the field.
Scalping:
Agrifac had the 2nd best scalping results for all machines, only Ropa was better with 1 machine (9-row) for the scalping. Our scalper showed that our scalping technology fits 100% to international standards. The majority of the beets is scalped on this level, not just cleaned by rubber flails, like Grimme does. Together with Vervaet Grimme did show, that they are scalping not correct, Grimme reached only 72,8 – 75,6% scalped on the right level. This is the reason why Grimme tries to establish “beet polishing” by high wearing rubber flails, Grimme can’t scalp correct.
Resume: The Agrifac Big Six was over all the best performed machine looking down to the practical use of the machine.
