Tong Engineering is set to introduce a new Cleaner Loader crop transfer machine to its latest range of vegetable handling equipment, to bring farmers and growers an in-field crop cleaning and loading solution that saves time, and makes crop loading much more efficient.
Designed to streamline post-harvest crop transfer, the new Cleaner Loader will receive crop straight from the harvester in the field, allowing more continuous operation of the harvester whilst significantly reducing unnecessary transport of crop from field to farm.
The newly designed machine will be built to incorporate a high capacity hopper as standard, feeding Tong’s market leading EasyClean separator, offering effective cleaning of crop in the field, removing excess soil and debris before gently transferring crop via an integrated elevator to bulkers for onward processing.
“Conventionally, once crop is harvested, it is loaded into trailers that transport crop back to the farm for cleaning and subsequent processing. This not only means that the harvester is required to stop and load crop into the trailers frequently, but also means that in a lot of cases, a large amount of soil is transported from the field to the farm,” explains Nick Woodcock, Sales Manager at Tong Engineering. “With the Tong Cleaner Loader, crop can be cleaned in the field, allowing soil to be removed and conveyed from the machine back onto the field the crop was harvested from.
Clean crop can then be loaded straight into bulkers at the field side, reducing unnecessary logistics and transport costs, making the whole process more environmentally friendly. In addition, by using the new Cleaner Loader to remove soil in the field, there is much less potential for soil to be carried onto the roads, which is a key consideration for farmers during the busy harvest period,” Nick Woodcock added.
Available with a choice of hopper sizes from 1.8m to 2.4m wide, and a choice of cleaning units including Tong’s EasyClean, star or coil cleaning units, the Cleaner Loader can be built to suit a variety of throughput requirements, with capacities of up to 60 tonnes per hour. Designed for easy transport within and between fields, the new machine is built upon a heavy duty chassis, and can also be used as a chaser unit alongside the harvester for continuous and high capacity crop cleaning and loading.
The Clean Loader is suitable for multi-site cleaning and loading of a wide variety of root crops including potatoes, carrots, onions, beetroot and sugar beet, and incorporates an easily-adjustable transfer elevator which ensures optimum transfer height and the gentlest handling of crop in all applications.
Tong Engineering is once again looking forward to exhibiting at the UK’s largest arable event, Cereals, June 15-16, in Cambridgeshire, UK, to present its latest equipment range for 2016.
