When you are running a mixed fleet of ageing tractors and decide it is time to invest in some new power units, the field is wide open – there is no loyalty to a particular brand or dealer to cloud the issue of finding the best tool for individual circumstances.
That is the position that Dave Mackenzie, manager of farming operations at A G Simpson in Fife, found himself in.
"We hadn't purchased a new tractor for maybe 10 years," he explains. "We decided what sort of machines we needed and set about finding them, taking price, specification and residual value into account in arriving at our final choice."
Checking out the obvious contenders found tractors with too much technology and too high a price, especially for the livestock enterprises, which comprise a 200-cow suckler herd, 700-sow outdoor pig unit and 1200-ewe sheep flock for what they wanted.
And while most field work for the 1000-acre arable enterprise – growing barley, wheat and beans for feed – is handled by a contractor, the business still needed a relatively high-spec machine for baling and haulage of feed and stock between farms.
The answer was found in the Landini range, with the result that five of the ARGO Group machines are now the frontline tractors for this diverse farming operation, which is managed from the home unit, Parbroath Farm, near Cupar.
The most powerful of the five new tractors, a 162/171hp Landini 7-165 Techno, tackles a big workload baling straw, hay and silage.
"It also replaced an old Fastrac for hauling straw and grain to our pig unit 11 miles away, so we needed a 50kph transmission, air braking for the trailer and front axle and cab suspension to travel between our properties quickly and safely," notes Mr Mackenzie. "It's about as high tech a tractor as we would want; there's a power shuttle and eight-speed powershift but mechanical hydraulic valves and so on because we prefer levers and cables to a lot of electronics."
That philosophy is also evident in the choice of the trio of 133hp Landini Landpower 135 Techno tractors as the general purpose workhorses for the livestock enterprises. This machine is unique among six-cylinder tractors in being available only with a manual forward-reverse shuttle; it has consistently been the most popular choice so Landini distributor AgriArgo UK dropped the higher spec power shuttle version last year.
Dave Mackenzie regards the synchro shuttle, 18-speed manual gearbox and other hand-operated controls as a virtue: "It's a simple tractor that's easy to use – and that's important when the machines are used by the multi-skilled people we employ on the different livestock enterprises and whose main focus to look after our animals rather than things mechanical," he explains.
"This tractor has the power and features we need rather than features that people might desire but don't necessarily make any difference to productivity or residual value," Mr Mackenzie adds. "We noticed that the Landpower has very good residual value relative to the purchase price – as much as 60-65% at 4000-5000 hours."
Given a choice, any driver would choose to operate the 7-165: "It's a nice, very comfortable tractor to drive," he agrees. "But we have to look at these things from a business point of view and putting what I call 'empty' hours on a more expensive and more sophisticated tractor when the job can be done perfectly well by a simpler, cheaper one is simply an unnecessary cost to the business."
It follows, then, that while the 7-165's high top speed, suspension, braking and boost power for pto and road work make it the tractor of choice for baling and moving grain, straw, cattle and sheep to summer grazing, the Landpower 135s have a multitude of different roles.
Two of the tractors supplied by Kinross-based Landini dealer George Colliar, are employed on trailer work, powering a roller mill, topping 1500 acres of pasture and establishing 50 acres of game cover for a commercial shoot. One also drives a mixer producing medicated grit for grouse.
The third Landpower, bought a couple of months ago, is dedicated to the outdoor pig unit at Leuchars, carting muck on occasion but mostly powering a new mobile feed mill and mixer.
"We recently changed from a wet feed system to a dry system utilising our own grain instead of buying-in concentrate feed," explains pig unit manager Paul Bennett. "The hammer mill and mixing system take a fair bit of power; the tractor certainly knows when it's working.
“But I like the idea of having an unstressed six-cylinder engine on the job rather than a four-cylinder that's being pushed to produce the power," he adds.
The Landpower has a 160-tonne a week workload preparing batches of feed that are transferred pneumatically to storage bins for the 700 Large White x Landrace sows and their Berkshire cross progeny, which are fattened for Morrison's traditional range.
"It's a bit like a scaled-up stockman's tractor – very simple and easy to drive," notes Mr Bennett. "It was bought for the raw power needed to drive the mill-mix machine and for what we do it's ideal."
He also likes the fifth Landini in the fleet, a 110hp Perkins-engined 5-115H, which is equipped with a TurboLift loader to handle all loading work on the livestock units.
“The power shuttle and button-operated transmission clutch help make it a very productive handling tractor,” he says. “It’s compact and easy to get in and out; an ideal all-round stockman’s tractor.”
Dave Mackenzie anticipates similar models joining the fleet on the pig unit as other old machines are pensioned off.
“I think we’ll get into a more regular routine of changing tractors in future, so we can capitalise on the Landini residual values and minimise our repair and running costs,” he says.
