With a move to animal manures as natural soil conditioners, the increased demand for reliable manure spreaders was in the spotlight at the 2023 Henty Machinery Field Days.
The E-Series Manure Spreader was launched to the Australian market at the field days by Canadian manufacturer JBS Equipment and Australian importer Atlas Ag.
The E-Series features an upgraded long link floor chain, quick attach Vertimax beaters, steel idler sprockets, low friction hard-wearing plastic floor, hydraulic guillotine gate and a low-maintenance hydraulic gearbox.
Optional upgrades include Hurricane beaters, scale and rate controller system, and flight protection system.
Atlas Ag distribution manager Jeff Saunders said the 20-tonne, heavy-duty, powder-coated E-Series was designed for low maintenance.
“The feedback has been excellent with customers wanting choice in the spreader market combined with reliability,” Mr Saunders said.
“Many producers in Europe, North America and Australia are moving back to natural fertilisers such as manure as opposed to chemical fertilisers for rejuvenation of the soil.
“We are seeing manure will have a much bigger role to play as a soil conditioner in Australia.
“Contractors are telling us they cannot get enough manure so clearly the market is really going ahead, with the bigger feedlots and dairies realising the value of what they have sitting in piles, and they are turning that into a commodity.”
Mr Saunders said the E-Series Manure Spreaders were designed to top dress paddocks in the most efficient and reliable way possible.
“These units are working in conditions from -45 degrees Celsius to +45 degrees in North America, and they have to be reliable,” he said.
“Secondly, the beaters are interchangeable, so the same unit does several different jobs.
“The beaters can be removed and used as forage flailers — there are forage gates which can be attached, resulting in a versatile machine.
“These machines can handle from light materials such as gypsum and lime through to clay.”
Mr Saunders said bearings had been replaced by neoprene blocks for less wearing parts and ease of maintenance.
“A lot of dairies and feedlots have sand which ends up getting mixed up with the manure and is highly corrosive to machinery. The spreader has a neoprene floor to reduce wear.”
A minimum of 130hp is required to pull the E-Series, which Mr Saunders said was quite low compared to the size of the machine.
“The beauty of these machines is they are simplistic — there is not a lot that can go wrong.”
The spreader on display at Henty was equipped with scales and dynamic rate control, ensuring the correct spreading speed according to the material weight. The angle of the beaters allows a natural fall pattern of material.
The E-Series has a transport width of 3.5m. The wheels sit outside of the tub rather than underneath ensuring stability on slopes and increasing safety by lowering the centre of gravity. Flotation tyres are fitted to reduce soil compaction.