The blocade season has started

[YCCMB]

Andy...secondhand top of the range arracheuse could be as much as half a million euros on its own. Something a little more basic (the sort of thing that involves our neighbour bringing in 13-14 temp labourers for 3 weeks to get their spud harvest in): 30- odd to 90-odd thousand. All ex vat. Again, secondhand.

[woolybanana]

Kit is bought by cooperatives and shared or rented and not bought as the above imply.

[andyh4]

Thank you for that Betty. I did actually tell a little white lie in so far as the John Deer website does have a potato harvester for sale - €200 - the only problem is that it is a 1:32 scale model.

[YCCMB]

Of course it is. How many people do you think need to be in a co-op to bring costs down to a lowish sum per farmer, Wooly? Or rental: it's not the "from only 10Euros a day" that you see on the side of a hire can in Leclerc.

That's why most farmers have to make do with equipment that's state of the ark rather than state of the art, because their co-op only has a 15 year old arracheuse.

And let's not forget that once you've entered the lottery that is anticipating exactly when you need to borrow the kit (based on crop readiness, employee availability and the weather), you've GOT to use it, even if that means using it all night, because Jean-Luc in the next hamlet has it booked from Thursday. So if it rains for the entire time you booked it, either you use it regardless, you piss off Jean-Luc or the whole Co-op has a massive rethink.

[woolybanana]

Round here there are huge spud lifting monsters and machines used to pick up the sugar beet which are rented and which do go all night. They even close some roads to do the job. Very impressive they are too.

[Patf]

In the summer they seemed to prefer harvesting at night, when it's cool. In fact it was de regle.

Rest during the day.

[richard51]

Are they blocking the roads with little old 2CVs still?

[woolybanana]

Nah, Dusters round here.