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Clear
skies and frost at night provided the ideal opportunity to
commence the harvest. At present its all hands on deck. The
combines are refueled at 6am and given a thorough check. By 9am
the overnight dew has dried off the plants and the machines work
right thru without a break until approx 8pm when once again the
dew starts to moisten the plants. Wet beans go direct to the
drying plant while dry beans move through the intake pit, cleaners
and in to the aerated storage silos. Enjoy the pictures...
Big
machines for a big landscape.
John Deere 9650 STS working under the shadow of the Maluti Mountains
Keeping it moving, keeping it mechanised, keeping it efficient
Bean drying plant
Inside the bean plant
Don't stop to discharge
On the farm Keerom
Des left and Leon.. Working non stop to make it all happen
Classic Eastern Free State topography
Close up of the precision needed by the operators...
Truck no 2. Freightliner Argosy with Bathtub trailer
Preparing supper for the men
Through the dusk and in to the night
John Deere 6820 with Richard Weston 14 ton trailer used to work the smaller contours with one Combine. The clean up team.
The boss Wilf with daughter Tamara left.
On the way to the silos 6km away
Large dry receiving store absorbs the peak deliveries which can overwhelm the intake pit
The on farm storage silos clean dry and store
Refueling and servicing starts at 6AM. Ideal for the job is SA manufactured "Blesbok"... a go anywhere Military supply vehicle on loan from the SANDSTONE HERITAGE TRUST.
Another view of the storage silos. Each silo in the picture holds 700 tonne
Completing the harvest on the farm Tussenin
Far from the madding crowd
Our Case tractors follow the combines with disc type implements to deep rip. We expect to do this every 3/4 years. With gps controlled traffic management we hope to do away with this step altogether. This land is now ready for planting in Oct 2008
Big, dynamic SKY country
The business end of the chisel plough
Note the angle working across previous planting rows in a grid pattern
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©
Sandstone Estates, Eastern Free State, South Africa |