increase font size
With a powered axle and larger tyres this Richard Western SF18 trailer can handle wet harvest better.
With a wet autumn and even wetter winter, Northern European farmers and contractors are coming up with novel solutions to get the harvest in and plant next year’s crops.
Reports suggest that the forage maize harvest has been particularly difficult, with some crops expected to be harvested in late September or early October, still being chopped just before Christmas.
While swapping harvesters’ front tyres set up for tracks has meant that harvesters keep moving, the biggest issue has been the ability for tractors and trailers to run alongside. One Danish contractor, Gads Maskinstation, has addressed the situation with a powered axle and larger tyres on his Richard Western SF18 trailer.
Typically, the SF 18 trailers leave the east of England factory on tandem axles fitted with 560/60R22.5 tyres or a 600/55R26.5 option. Seeing a developing pattern of harvests getting wetter, Maskinstation looked at a different configuration and now runs four SF18s with a single hydraulically powered axle and extra-large 800/65R32 VF boots.
Supplied by the customer and fitted by the Suffolk-based trailer manufacturer, the drive axle with planetary driven hubs have come from a loading shovel or dump truck, while the trailer builder has also incorporated an additional cross member for the hydraulic motor mount which drives the axle.
Danish contractors are not alone in struggling with water-logged maize, as similar situations in the UK and Ireland means there appears to be increasing interest in the single axle/large tyre solution.
A spokesman for Richard Western says, “We can offer trailers from 11t to 18t with single non-powered axles in the wide- or standard body width format with 750/60R30.5 tyres. For powered axle configurations, we can either source the axles or fit units supplied by the client”.
The company also notes that one of the best options for wet conditions are BWT20 trailers with tandem axles and 650/50R26.5 tyres, commonly found in sugar beet and maize silage harvest operations.
Back in Denmark while the solution is working well, the contractor’s New Holland T9.560 tractor has been called upon on several occasions to keep the T7.315 and bespoke SF18 alongside the forage harvester.
The market is in decline in the United States, Canada and Brazil. In Europe, sales are falling in Germany, France and Spain. Turkey is experiencing a sharp decline, whilst the economic strategies and policies implemented by India and China are driving purchases in both countries.
Areare Farms, a dairy operation in the Waikato region spanning multiple properties and milking 760 cows, now has Jenna and her brother Brian Rogers, the third generation of the family business, working alongside their parents Phil and Jackie.
Hamilton-based manufacturer SAM Machinery and Hawke’s Bay’s Tabula have joined forces to offer customers more ways to connect its spreaders with the technology they already use in the cab.
Installing two GEA DairyRobots R9500s marks a major step in the Coubrough family’s journey towards a more automated, future-ready farming operation.
Claas built its first variable chamber round baler - the Variant 100 - in 1996, so 2026 marks 30 years and the fifth generation of the Variant name, recently complemented by the new Cerex Series introduced in 2025.
Three men have been sentenced in District Courts after Ministry for Primary Industries prosecutions over animal welfare, food safety and cattle tracing offences.
Fonterra’s 2026 financial year was a year of delivery, with record volumes of milk collected, processed and shipped by the co-op.
OPINION: The Government's decision to reinstate agriculture and horticultural science as a standalone subject from Year 11 is the right one.
Dairy farmers, still holding onto their Fonterra shares despite switching milk supply elsewhere or exiting the industry, now face a stricter share sell-down requirement.
Hamilton-based agritech company Aimer Farming has completed a $3 million capital raise to support its next stage of growth, including a beef farming product due to launch in 2027.
When dairy manager Miriam Lauridsen learned the farm, she was joining held weekly health and safety meetings, she initially thought that was “a bit over the top”. Experiencing that culture changed her mind.
