Lely

Lotus 1500 Profi - Peter Robinson - Ireland

First Lely Lotus 1500 Profi tedder in Maynooth

The Lely Lotus tedder has been around a long time, perhaps not as long as the ‘haybob’ nor as popular as it in the early years with its leggy, awkward looking design. But Lely did hit on something back then with its hook designed tines, which scooped up the grass off the ground and flinging it rearwards,  achieving a good ‘kick out’. The Dutch stuck with the hook design and today you can not only still get a 3 metre Lotus 300 but they have developed the range right up to a 15 metre trailed machine (that’s a few inches shy of 50 foot). They also have their sights set on a 20 metre machine which they introduced as a concept machine a few years ago.

For the moment though the 15 metre machine is their biggest tedder and this was launched towards the end of the first half of 2009. The first one of these 15 metre, machines has arrived in Ireland and has been busy on the farm of Peter Robinson, just outside Maynooth, Co. Kildare. Peter and his son David run a hay and hayleage business supplying customers nationwide with hay and hayleage, principally for the horse industry and to a lesser degree the cattle industry.

“When we started out in the 80’s we used a 3 metre Lely tedder and progressed up to a 10 metre Lely trailed tedder. This year we changed the 10 metre machine for a 15 metre unit.  With the 10 metre machine, we found that we had to get in extra help with the tedding to get over the ground. We need to keep costs down, if we bought another 10 metre machine we would be doubling up on costs with an extra tractor and someone to drive it, so this year we went for the 15 metre Lely Lotus 1500 Profi tedder.

Peter explains why he likes the Lely tedder design, “The hooked tine design gives a much leveller finish and leaves no lumps. If a field is fit to bale, then every part of the field is fit to bale.” Behind his Fiat 90-90 he says, “The Lotus 1500 is so easy to use, we got the Profi version because it is so manoeuvrable. You can turn on the headland in one motion and drive back down beside where you have just tedded. Even the small Lely or Haybob couldn’t turn as sharp as that.  If you couldn’t drive down beside where you have just worked, you would have to ‘work out’ sections and this would mean extra driving on the headlands.” Extra driving and traffic on the hayleage crop is unacceptable to Peter as quality is so important when supplying the horse industry.

(Text and photo’s by Bruce Lett)