Chris Condon runs a sugar cane farm in Tully and explains why the CH960 harvester works for his operation. The machine cuts fuel costs, boosts productivity, and compacts the soil less than older equipment.
My name's Chris Condon. I live on a family farm here in Tully. Our farming business here covers around 2,300 hectares of cane land and grow around about 200,000 tonnes of sugarcane on a good year. I farm here with my dad and we've got five full time staff and then we have a seasonal workforce that operate our harvesting machinery. The original idea of the 960 harvester was presented to my dad a few years back when it was. When it was just a pipe dream. I think it was always an interest of ours to be more efficient in harvesting. Like to do two rows at once to us was a no brainer. The productivity gains have been the hours. So spent less hours in the paddock. For the harvester crew, we're definitely picking up at least sort of three to four hours labour every day. The boys are going home sort of that much earlier which is really exciting for us. Yeah. So I guess the productivity of the machine, the pour rates 570 normally average around that just over 100, 115 tonnes to the hour pour rate and the boys have been averaging about 180 tonnes to the outpour rate with this machine quite comfortably still achieving quality product. So that's. Yeah, it's really good for us because the haul outs are getting filled so much quicker. They're not spending as much time in the paddock, they're out under the harvester and they're actually doing the prominent part of their job which should be going from the paddock to the siding. I think roughly our haul outs are picking up about 30% fuel efficiency. Yeah. I guess the soil compaction because we're picking up two rows at once. The harvester is not actually going down every row and the haul outs aren't going down every row now either. So the compaction will just be reduced by that alone. The footprint of it I think is quite good. The tracks are wider. The compaction seems to be spread out a bit. We have cut in some wet conditions with it. It hasn't been a problem. I think the challenges in the industry definitely vary. Cost of labour is certainly a challenge but how we overcome that is we're just becoming more and more efficient. So that's where this 960 comes into play. I can't see how this harvester won't suit every farm in the industry. Even the short rows, because it's grabbing two of them at a time. I think it'll suit everywhere. John Deere are right at the forefront of tractor aga automation and more operations with less labour, I think, is where the industry is heading.
