HARVEST BBC 2

The one in Kent that is all artificial - everything in hydroponics and chemicals rather than soil / organic??

 

Whatever Kristen,
What matters is IT WORKS. We mustn't be luddites here. I think they look amazing and I doubt they are any less tasty than some of mine. Toms are so full of goodness and they can give us this commodity fresh -in the middle of Winter - right here in England.
it give me quite a buzz,
Jenny

 

I take a different view I'm afraid. In a former life I set up close to an acre of greenhouses on an industrial estate using waste heat from industrial processes - there was no usable soil on the site. Everything was using hydroponics, tomato yields were over 100 tonnes per acre (dunno if that is good by today's standards, but at the time it was regarded as good). Flavour was not a patch on soil-grown - IMO the plants had access to too much water. The company eventually decided that there wasn't enough money in vegetable market and switched to hydroponic office plants - much more successful: grow a plant to perfection, install it in an office, require that a special grow-lamp is used, replace the plant 6 months later to ring-the-changes, by which time it had grown taller, stick it in the greenhouse for a few weeks to perk it up ... and send it out to a customer that needed a bigger plant!

I think that eating fresh vegetables out of season is usually extravagant. The light, heat and energy to produce Tomatoes in Kent out-of-season is significant (as is flying them in from Kenya or wherever), and we rarely have such out-of-season produce in our house (otherwise the rest of the household have to suffer the wrath of my indignation! Much the same for other high food-miles crops, like Mangos). In this regard I'm not sure that "because we can" is a good enough reason.

 

That would be cool, but I have nothing to harvest. At least not that I'd need a combine for. I just think they're cool and I'd love to just drive one round a bit.

 

They motor along at an incredible rate, and fairly chuck the chopped straw out of the back.

I can remember the days when there was a bloke on the footplate of the combine putting sacks onto the chutes (about 4 of them I think), he tied the tops with string and slid them down a ramp off the back of the combine, and then a team of people came along and put the sacks onto trailers.

I can't imagine why they didn't do bulk sooner ...

Here's a monster combine video to keep you going C1

 

fab programme , very interesting

 

Done it for 8 year's with no cabs just the dust and the wind blowing the straw down the back of your neck then 2 years with one with a cab just like a micowave oven, the new one's the combine does the work all you do is drive it

 

Don't think you even have to do that as they are laser guided - the reel is too wide to be able to see where the edge is from the cab - so the only driving you have to do is turn round at the ends of the rows (not even sure you have to do that !)

 

I just think it would be fun to bring one out onto the moor road on a sunny bank holiday.

 

Camera's on the header and the back of combine and on the unloading augar

Also GPS mapping

 

Took one in to a pub car park once, went in to have a warm up (11 at night) the bar lady said " been combine then", Yes, "combine out side",Yes, then she went out to look, and they it was

 

I don't know much about it, but the local farmers round here say the laser aligns with the edge of the crop and keeps it within an inch or so. They can just sit in the cab whilst it motors along ...

The farmers around here seem to manage several thousand acres solo so spend a lot of their time, whilst on machinery, running their business phoning to arrange this purchase or that sale.

 

Oh for the days spent simply waiting for something to fly up and blast it with a 12 gauge.

 

That's why I didn't ask you if you wanted to come to the Bristol Balloon Festival this year Scrunge.