Carrfields helps keep machines moving through silage season

This is brought to you in partnership with Carrfields Machinery.

Farmers who settle a few fallback options before silage season are less likely to make a rushed call mid-harvest that they regret a couple of days later.

Murray Chesterman, Sales Specialist at Carrfields Machinery who oversees the KRONE range, says a solid plan is only a baseline once the weather turns or a machine stops.

“You can’t overthink it; you can’t overplan and mitigate for every circumstance. But certainly having some options there that you’ve thought about,” he says.

He says those options can be a handful of simple questions answered ahead of time.

“If your baler goes down, am I bringing another baler? If the contractor’s chopper goes down, do they have another one lined up? Or instead of a pit, are we going to turn to baleage in that scenario?”

Chesterman says all that planning comes back to protecting silage quality.

“Grass on the ground that’s not being picked up can go backwards very quickly.”

He says machinery should be sorted well in advance, rather than left until the day the grass is ready.

“Particularly in Canterbury, if you’ve got a good strong nor’west day going on and your baler’s not going to function, then you might have a few issues on the cards.”

Chesterman says Carrfields phones customers ahead of the season to promote winter servicing and recommend repairs, so faults are found and fixed before the grass is down.

The contractor should be getting a call now too, with honest detail about grass stage, expected volumes and anything that has changed since last season.

“Even communicating simple things like somewhere you might have acquired a runoff block that’s a bit further down the road, and actually that’s where you want your pit to be rather than the same place it was the last five years for that same contractor.”

Chesterman says Carrfields backs its team to prioritise customers in season, sending a technician or a new or used machine so the crop still comes in, and its technicians know both the gear and the farmers.

“Those relationships are massive when it comes to in-season and some of those problems eventuating.”

This is brought to you in partnership with Carrfields Machinery. To learn more, or to connect with a local specialist, visit https://www.carrfields.co.nz/our-divisions/machinery/

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