Judged at the annual Henty Machinery Field Days, held in Henty, NSW, the awards had 18 entries this year. One of the most impressive features of the 3420 PHD Paralink Hoe Drill is its ability to fold from its working width of 25m to a transport width of just 5.4m
The entire folding sequence is actuated with hydraulics and moving the seeding bar backwards and forwards to ‘open' up the frame.
It takes about four minutes to unfold the drill, which was demonstrated at the HMFD with a Bourgault 7550 cart.
Highly commended in the Awards was the Coolamon All Rounder multi-purpose chaser bin entered by Bruce and Heath Hutcheon, Coolamon Chaser Bins, Coolamon, NSW.
The Henty Machine of the Year Award is known as the "farmers choice'' gong, presented to the most outstanding new piece of agricultural machinery exhibited at the field days.
Bourgault NSW territory manager Jonathon McKenzie said the 3420 drill with the cart, set up on 300mm row spacings, was worth about $770,000 including GST.
The Coolamon All Rounder bin functions as a chaser bin at harvest time, a seed-super unit at sowing time and a fertiliser spreader.
The All Rounder has two bins separated by a wall, while a conveyor underneath brings the product up to two augers at the front for use as a seed and fertiliser unit for filling air seeder bins.
