Crop tillage mulcher combines projects
Recent management, restructuring and consulting services for agricultural projects and farm land investments on crop, field, soil tillage, combine harvest,
rotary
and forestry mulcher
in Eastern Europe
Lead, restructure and consult soil tillage crop management
of farm operation land investment in Romania, Eastern Europe
Originally as an agronomist I started consulting on introducing new cultivation methods of this struggling farmland investment in West-Romania. But soon after a trouble-shooter intervention for the transition and change was needed to restructure completely. At the beginning key focus was to change mind and approach of the farm manager teams.
Most crucial has been to correct the soil pH from often below 5 of a heavy clay soil which should be at 6,5 as well as P and K contents often very low in grade A. Due to the large backlog demand of lime (CaCO3), it would result in such immense investment sums of the 9,000 ha of arable farmland. Thus lime spreading had been implemented gradually year by year.
Seed sourcing for suitable varieties (especially 3,500 ha wheat, 3,000 ha UHO/HO sunflower, HO rapeseed, corn, silage maize, field grass, alfalfa) and obtaining high-quality seeds are a major challenge if there is no official cultivar testing and the domestic seed supplier offer poor quality. Thus the varieties I often imported. I had oriented myself to the variety test dry area Austria, like the Italian, Belgian, French neighbors use varieties from their home countries which is a question of information flow and access!
Success of managing and restructuring as agronomy trouble-shooter of these 9,000 ha agricultural investment was to ensure by intensive training of the farm management team staff, farm equipment and machinery investment, and a major overhaul of the 28,000 t grain storages and warehouses. Extensive improvement followed in ventilation of the grain storage to keep the previously low product quality over winter.
Most crucial has been to correct the soil pH from often below 5 of a heavy clay soil which should be at 6,5 as well as P and K contents often very low in grade A. Due to the large backlog demand of lime (CaCO3), it would result in such immense investment sums of the 9,000 ha of arable farmland. Thus lime spreading had been implemented gradually year by year.
Seed sourcing for suitable varieties (especially 3,500 ha wheat, 3,000 ha UHO/HO sunflower, HO rapeseed, corn, silage maize, field grass, alfalfa) and obtaining high-quality seeds are a major challenge if there is no official cultivar testing and the domestic seed supplier offer poor quality. Thus the varieties I often imported. I had oriented myself to the variety test dry area Austria, like the Italian, Belgian, French neighbors use varieties from their home countries which is a question of information flow and access!
Success of managing and restructuring as agronomy trouble-shooter of these 9,000 ha agricultural investment was to ensure by intensive training of the farm management team staff, farm equipment and machinery investment, and a major overhaul of the 28,000 t grain storages and warehouses. Extensive improvement followed in ventilation of the grain storage to keep the previously low product quality over winter.
Advise, lead and restructure the farm equipment machinery operation
as managing director of a large scale farmland operation investment in Romania, Eastern Europe
Natural framework condition of restructuring and managing the management team of the farmland investment in Romania was characterized by predominantly heavy soil, often too wet in spring but extremely dry in hot summer with large shrinkage cracks: Only robust agricultural machinery and equipment meaningful but lot of brands had been tested in comparison. Purely plow-less cultivation leads to high weed pressure and or high herbicide use. Pragmatically, the plows were "resuscitated" sometimes.
At the start as trouble shooter I had to face an outdated, overused, repair-prone, often failing farm machinery, poorly or not maintained but spare parts on stock for EUR 800,000 including for machines not existent anymore.
In close coordination and consultation with the agricultural equipment technology provider Mauch from Austria a maintenance concept with documentation checked daily, weekly and monthly was introduced. We run several training sessions and many audit checks for the management team staff on how to main properly by external consulting mechanics.
The farm workshops were completely renovated and efficiently equipped. The spare part warehouse was reduced in value down to EUR 150,000 through significantly improved logistics. In general spare parts only been purchased after competitive bidding processes. Above all, there was a targeted acquisition of new and replacement machines over the years worth EUR 5 million. The number of machines has been reduced. Cannibalism from 4 to 2 turned off.
Consult, manage and restructure logistic and combine operation investment in Romania, South Eastern Europe
Main objective of the change management when I started was to retread the large agricultural machinery investment of new, more powerful but lower number of efficient performing combine harvesters with automatic GPS parallel auto-guidance and electronic data acquisition including remote machinery data control link access.
Field logistics was another big topic of this farming group and its farm management teams in Romania at my beginning. Like to stop the inefficient accumulation of up to 8 combine harvesters working in the same field often blocking each other. In addition there were far too short and low field harvest times and performance per day while percentage of dirt delivered to the grain storage plants too high.
With the involvement of specialized consultants switching to pairs of only two combine harvesters per one trailer per field and defining overload zones a big improvement has been possible. By getting a consultant from the manufacturer involved a basic increase in the working area per day through optimized adjustment and maintenance as well as longer harvesting times per day resulted: start earlier, longer in the evening having the combines much better adjusted.
Preventive ongoing control and maintenance (clean high pressure blowing), in the case of extreme dust development undertaken, two or even three times a day, so that the combines didn't burn as often with neighbors.
Field logistics was another big topic of this farming group and its farm management teams in Romania at my beginning. Like to stop the inefficient accumulation of up to 8 combine harvesters working in the same field often blocking each other. In addition there were far too short and low field harvest times and performance per day while percentage of dirt delivered to the grain storage plants too high.
With the involvement of specialized consultants switching to pairs of only two combine harvesters per one trailer per field and defining overload zones a big improvement has been possible. By getting a consultant from the manufacturer involved a basic increase in the working area per day through optimized adjustment and maintenance as well as longer harvesting times per day resulted: start earlier, longer in the evening having the combines much better adjusted.
Preventive ongoing control and maintenance (clean high pressure blowing), in the case of extreme dust development undertaken, two or even three times a day, so that the combines didn't burn as often with neighbors.
Consult, restructure and manage of operation rotary mower and forestry mulcher for rural landscape stewardship
in Southeast Europe
Starting point: In the course of the rehabilitation and management of the rural landscape and countryside coordinated
maintenance of around 7,000 hectares of grassland in Southeast Europe. A separate team was formed, which was used all year round, in addition to ensiling forage and harvesting grain crop logistics particular straw baling and transport.
With several sickle mulchers - rotary mowers - shredders in a working width of 8.20 m the growth of grassland and arable fallow land was chopped up and small bushes shredded remaining on the surface. Since it was not done consistently in the past, as is customary in Banat region of Romania, Balkans, there was a total of up to 1,000 ha of original grassland of this typical European rural cultural landscape and countryside that is increasingly bushy and forested.
For this purpose, a set of special forest mulchers shredders was invested. The tractors were equipped with forest strips, protective devices for the tank and engine, cage around the cabin against stone chips and wood, and for driving over with a battering ram from agricultural technology specialist Mauch in Upper Austria.
Let us clarify objectives, approach and options to fulfil your R&D project, farm management, and consulting need.
I look forward to working with and for you!
Best wishes, Guido Haas
g.haas@agrarhaas.de
