Sugar Beet Harvest 2014





Sugar beet is a staple crop of English farming.  In Norfolk two things begin every year in September.  The pheasant shooting season and the sugar beet harvest.  Young pheasants fresh from the rearing pens, gravitate in a dangerous manner to the country roads, to be joined by the sugar beet lorries that collect the harvested beet and convey it to the British Sugar factories at Wissington and Cantley.  The sight of sugar beet lorries, herald the new school term and the change in the seasons to autumn, with misty mornings and shortening daylight hours.

I took this picture just outside Attleborough, about half a mile from the junction for the A11.  The lorry is waiting by the beet elevator and the teleporter is heading to the pile sugar beet to load the elevator.

 I will add more pictures as the season progresses.  At the moment it is dry on the land, with day light hours still into the evening.  The process gets wet, muddy, dark and cold, as we head through to Christmas. 

This Vervaet 617 sugarbeet harvester was working Neil's land in Breckland.




This John Deere tactor was ferrying the beet off the land.







The harvester has a conveyor belt to load the sugarbeet into the trailers.





Neil was driving his tractor John Deere tractor and here he is lining up with the harvester to collect the beet.



Neil's John Deere 6830

John Deere tractor Spraying



This tractor was spraying outside Attleborough, Norfolk.  He will be spraying an industrail version of Roundup weed killer, before ploughing takes place.

While I was watching a repair vehicle arrived and the tractor stopped working, folding in the spray arms.

John Deere tractor and Plough

John Deere tractor and plough.

Spoilt for Choice




I was spoilt for choice today, with a New Holland working to the left of me, mowing and hedging and a John Deere discing on the stubble to the right of me.

 

Sharing Farming Knowledge






  


He confirmed that the caterpillar track on his John Deere tractor gives better traction and causes less damage to the land but it does not perform so well on wet land or heavy land.




He explained that the tilling machine that the tractor was pulling was using a set of discs to grub up the stubble, then a set of rollers and finally a compactor at the back , which was levelling the land.




I noticed that such a long and heavy machine could  not use three point linkage for manouvring, instead it had hydraulic wheels that it could be raised on.



Often those who work in the fields are under time pressure to complete tasks.  So when this gentleman was kind enough to stop and tell me what he was doing and what epuipment he was using, I felt really blessed.  He explained to me about minimum till.  This means that when he has finished in the field it will be sown, with no ploughing in between.

John Deere 6830 tractor, ploughing in Breckland Norfolk

This is a John Deere 6830 tractor, ploughing and rolling.  It is surrounded by seagulls looking for an easy lunch.  I posted another picture of this tractor and plough yesterday.




The driver had two large interconnecting fields to plough but didn't seem too concerned.  I don't think I would be either, at the wheel of such a lovely machine.