An Irish agricultural machinery engineer designed a tedder rake combination that can spread grass out or rake it into rows.
Michael Clarke, 27, of Ballindine in County Mayo, has made a prototype of his Dualstar 6000E 20-foot tedder rake combo that he said will save farmers money. He hopes to make it commercially available by 2024.
Clarke, who works full-time as a mechanical design engineer for a machinery company, has always wanted to be self-employed and has formed Clarke Agri Engineering.
While he also manufactures grass harrows, it is the tedder rake combo that he hopes will be popular on the silage machinery market.
Read Also
Government, industry seek canola tariff resolution
Governments and industry continue to discuss how best to deal with Chinese tariffs on Canadian agricultural products, particularly canola.
“The Dualstar 6000E is a 20-foot machine that works as a tedder, spreading out the grass, and then as a rake, raking it into rows again. This machine saves farmers and contractors from buying two separate machines and running them individually on two tractors. The cost saving here will be significant as there is only one machine to maintain,” he said.
The unit is hydraulically operated and manufactured with a steel chassis and four steel rotors. Clarke said it needs a tractor with at least 80 horsepower to operate. The machine has an independent hydraulic system and can be easily switched between rake and tedder from the tractor cab.
When in tedder mode, the axle folds up and the four rotors operate against each other. They work with each other when making rows.
Clarke said he plans a few tweaks to the prototype and will build a demo machine to run in next year’s silage season.
“I need to alter a few angles on the machine when tedding to make the grass shake out a bit better. I also may need to look at adding two bigger hydraulic motors to make it work faster when tedding.
“I’m only working on this at nights and weekends but I need to get the changes made and have a machine fully operational for trials next season.”
When the design is finalized, Clarke said he can easily add a rotor to either end of the machine, to have six rotors with a working width of 30 feet or eight rotors covering 40 feet.
The existing 20-foot machine is mounted on two-point linkage, weighs 2,200 kilograms, is 15 feet long and has a transport height of 12 feet.
Clarke is confident the unit will cost less than buying a tedder and rake individually.
“I need to sit down and think about how I can manufacture and distribute the machine commercially,” he said. “I have a few meetings set up to discuss these details soon.”
