7 minute read
Complete Package
Jaiden Drought found the Taege 6m cultivator had a number of clever innovations up its sleeve in this 2014 review
Taege 6m cultivator (600 CTV RFH)
Row spacing (mm) 121 Outside tine to tine (mm) 5,808 Overall width (mm) 6,300 Folded width (mm) 2,700 No. of tines 49 No. tine rows 4.5 Tine row stagger (mm) 590 Working speed 2 to 14km/h Tractor hp required 140 (103kW)
Taege Engineering has been enjoying a period of sales success with its seed drills and for a number of good reasons. They are very hard-wearing, basic, built like the proverbial outhouse and ‘cheap’ given the features included as standard. I am running my keen eye for detail over Taege’s new 6m cultivator. It’s basically taken the best bits from its seed drills, including the heavy-duty ‘S’ tine mounted on the angle, and tweaked a few features in order to create a very effective cultivation machine.
KEY DESIGN FEATURES
Among a number of key features, the cultivator’s tines have the ability to bite into the soil with no downward force applied. This is achieved by tilting the box section forward where the tine is mounted. This does two things — first, it penetrates into the soil as the spring tine has no other option but to move downwards, and second, because the tip is on an angle, it shatters the ground to create a nice fluffy seed bed. Another advantage of the tilted tine is it allows the tip to follow the contour better as it essentially folds back or tracks around stones and humps and hollows, rather than ploughing straight into it, which is the case with straight-mounted machines. The other key advantage about the tine angle is that none of the tines can get out of line, which is an issue when bolted squarely onto the box section. Contour following is the next key advantage. Again, through the tilting of the ‘S’ tine and its flexibility, this allows approximately 200mm of travel from one tine to the next. Hydraulically controlled lifting on all four wheels gives you easy depth control with the ram spacers. The ram spacers have also been manufactured (despite the different size tyres) so the same number of shims can be added or taken away, which makes life simple. The wing rams are slot-mounted to allow for increased contour following again without the need for hydraulic down pressure, which would evidently make the machine rigid. When raising and lowering the machine a boomerang type device has been engineered to take up the give in the slot so the wings aren’t slamming against the end of the ram which reduces overall stress on the machine. The last point, and arguably the most important for a machine such as this, is trash clearance. Often these machines are taken either straight into old sprayed-out pasture where sod build-up can be an issue or recultivating ground after crops, in which case crop build-up can be a nightmare for any machine no matter how expensive it is. This machine enables the trash to flow through smoothly again, tied into the angle and flexibility of the tine. As the tines work their way through the ground they create a shaking effect, like a fish swimming. As all 49 tines on the 6m version are wiggling their way through the ground, any trash that is built-up is vibrated off and makes its way out the back and through the tine harrows. As mentioned, there are 49 tines which have been spaced at 121mm apart, both for soil movement and trash clearing characteristics, but in addition there is an assortment of tips available. The test machine we used was fitted with Nihard cast points, however, the Taege tungsten tip, a 125mm sweep, or a maxi-till chisel point are also available. You can also vary the tips. You could run the Nihard points on the front two rows and then the 125mm sweep tips on the rear to create even greater soil movement. I found three passes to be about the optimum in either trashy
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or clean soil: over this and you’re wasting time and diesel.
FRAME
The jury is still out on whether hot dipped galvanising looks as good as the good old two-pack paint but you can’t deny the longevity of the stuff, and given machinery is an investment it will save you in the long-run. The Taege philosophy is to build it simple with very few moving parts, reducing downtime, repairs and maintenance with the cultivator being no different. During Taege’s success with the drills, the company progressed towards air seeding equipment and cultivators with almost a 50-50 split in customer demands. This machine came first, so it must have been more like 60-40 in favour of the cultivator, but as always Taege is keeping customers happy by allowing space on the cultivator to mount a seed box with air running gear. The tines in front of the transport wheels have extra slots where the tines can be mounted forward, leaving room for a double shoot dropper. For transport, the wings of the cultivator fold up to give a very comfortable 2.7m width, which means no flags and hazard panels, and additionally the outside contour wheels can be folded up to help keep the weight of the wings towards the centre rather than trying to flop out. The machine is fitted with an adjustable front drawbar for easy levelling on any tractor, which also has a grate, not only adding strength but very little overall weight and makes for a good place for storing a chain and a few bits and bobs within view of the driver — although over rough terrain you can watch the scattering effect off the tines as your chain gets tangled.
TINE HARROW
For those already running a Taege drill or who have seen one in action, the tine harrows mounted on the back of the cultivator work in exactly the same way but are just slightly beefier. From a bird’s eye view, the tine harrows look like tread on a tractor tyre facing the opposite direction to each other. This feature creates a grading motion rather than aggressive scuffing, which the tines have already done. The benefit of this mounted system is they lift when the machine is lifted, allowing the cultivator to be backed into corners and around objects. There are several mounting points so you can vary the down pressure of the tine harrows but essentially, of the two rows, the front row is a heavier three-coil tine – stiffer and more rigid to smooth over bumps and clod bash – while the second row has more give and produces a softer finish.
TYRE ROLLER
The 6m Taege tyre roller has a bogey axle set-up with offset spacing so you don’t get a bow wave effect from a singlebeam standard tyre roller. Because the roller is made from car tyres and with the bogey axle for suspension, it travels along the road very well at high speed. Also, as it’s been designed with the cultivator in mind, the turning circle for a 6m cultivator and this machine’s tine harrow and roller are very impressive.
VERDICT
You often hear people say ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’, which certainly applies to this test. At first glance you would swear it was some box section welded together with tines spread across and a row of car tyres behind for a roller. In essence, you’re right – and that’s the idea. It’s that rugged simplicity that sells these machines, but hopefully I’ve explained some of their clever innovations to show you it’s not only simple but extremely effective.
1. The Taege 6m cultivator and roller combo making light work of this trashy, stony ground in North Canterbury 2. The tine spacing in front of the wheel can be moved forward to accommodate a double-shoot air seeder in the future 3. Two sets of hydraulic remotes and drawbar on the rear of the machine allows the rubber tyre roller to be easily coupled for a smooth paddock finish 4. Joel probably does consume the odd protein shake, although he isn’t
Superman. Instead, this is showing the weight balance of the Taege roller design 5. The long drawbar on the cultivator and the roller allows extremely tight headland turns to be carried out, even with a dualequipped tractor
