Handsfree harvesting has taken hold in Co. Carlow with O’Toole Precision Farm Solutions harvesting the last of the spring barley in Ballon.
Paul Brennan of Skyfly Photography filmed the O’Tooles harvesting the spring barley recently.
Some 70ac of spring barley were harvested recently by the contractor for Henry Nolan of Taylor’s Cross, Co. Carlow.
Pass to pass the field is two and a half acres and the harvest time for this field was 10 hours, Brennan said.
The harvester is a 2011 John Deere T560i Hillmaster, which has a self steer feature built into the combine which is to maximise efficiency whilst harvesting. The Hillmaster was purchased for €140,000.
Once in self steer all functions are controlled by satellite and this model has a cut of 20ft. It also has advanced features such as Greenstar, Autotrack, Harvestsmart and yield mapping.
The tractor featured in the spring barley video is a John Deere 6150R Autotrack and also featured in the video is a John Deere 6430 Greenstar.
Three brothers, Pat, Ollie and Dinny O’Toole came together in January of this year to form O’Toole Precision Farm Solutions.
Still have crops to harvest? Here’s the weather outlook for the week
Met Eireann says on Wednesday it will be dry in most areas, with bright spells and light variable winds, but some further scattered showers will occur, mainly in the north and northwest.
South and southeast coasts will be windy, with strong northeast winds and with a possibility of more persistent rain, which may spread to some east coasts overnight, it says.
Looking to Thursday, according to Met Eireann it will be a breezy day with bright spells and scattered showers. It says that there will be more persistent rain possibly at first along east and southeast coasts.
On Friday, most areas will be dry, with sunny spells and slackening west to northwest winds, it says.