Pöttinger: From grassland machinery to global innovator
Formed in 1871, Austrian agricultural machinery manufacturer Pottinger originally focused on producing grassland machinery for a little over a century.
The HIT 16.18T is a 16-rotor trailed machine with a 17-metre working width. This moves it ahead of the previous largest tedder, the 12-rotor HIT 12.14T – that offered a capacity of 12.4 metres.
It is fitted with 1.42 metre Dynatech rotors, which carry the same six swept tine arms as the rest of the HIT range. The layout sees large chassis wheels act as oversized jockey wheels to follow undulations, while each rotor also acts independently.
The tedder features the Liftmatic Plus function, which hydraulically moves the rotors back to a horizontal plane before lifting at the headland – delivering a ground clearance of 90cm. This is said to prevent scraping or scalping of the ground, thereby removing the risk of soil contamination.
When operating on the extremities of a paddock, the two rotors on the right hand end of the machine can be hydraulically swung rearwards by 15 degrees This results in a clear strip around the border of the paddock, stopping material being thrown into drains or under fence lines.
