Antonio Carraro’s TTR 4400 HST is giving one Adelaide hobby farmer the versatility he needs to handle multiple tasks in tricky conditions – all without compromise
Antonio Carraro tractors are regularly used in challenging environments both in Australia and around the world and are renowned for their unique characteristics in handling these with ease.
One of the Italian manufacturer’s most popular models is the TTR 4400 HST, which is comfortable on steep hills and can breeze through the low and narrow rows found in the vineyard and orchard settings they are designed for.
It is for this reason that Andrew Morris chose a TTR 4400 HST when he needed a new tractor to prepare his hobby farm in the Adelaide Hills earlier this year.
With the versatility to handle a variety of tasks, his impressions have been nothing but positive.
“It’s been easy to settle into. It’s stable, feels safe and a lot more comfortable to work in than what it’s replacing,” Morris says.
“We’ve got an old crawler, and you can really only sit on that for about half an hour before you need to get off, whereas you can sit comfortably on this for a long time.”
The end goal for Morris is a mixed-use hobby farm with an oak orchard for truffles and an area for small livestock.
He is currently in the process of slashing and rehabilitating an old farm that had been “let go” over the past 10 years and is overgrown with blackberries.
Clearing land and fixing fences are among his main goals at present, which means he requires a tractor with some durability.
In contrast though, a grassed area near the farmhouse means his tractor also needs to be delicate enough to drive over this without damaging the lawn.
Antonio Carraro’s TTR 4400 HST has been the perfect middle ground.
“The crawler is great and you can go into ridiculous places, but you can’t drive it over anything that’s going to be lawn, because it leaves holes in the ground from its tracks, and you also can’t stay on it for long,” Morris says.
“This is in the middle, where I can go into almost as many ridiculous areas, but can also mow lawn, and get around the orchard.
“It will be good for when the truffles come, and when the oak trees are coming up I’ll be able to maintain that in between the rows.
“It’s a pretty narrow machine, but also low as well, so you can get under branches once you prune them.
“It’s also very stable on slopes. We’re in quite a hilly area and so that’s why I chose this tractor.”
Another benefit of the TTR 4400 HST, Morris says, is its ability to handle a multitude of tasks thanks to the PTO shaft enabling easy switching of implements.
“The other thing was being able to switch out a flail mower for a rotary hoe or a box blade,” he says.
“We’ve got a flail mower on the front of this and you can just munch through all that overgrown blackberry and clear up fence lines.”
Morris also praised Antonio Carraro Australia’s national sales manager Marco Corra for his help during the sales process, even setting up a visit with an existing TTR 4400 HST user while Morris was in Victoria – an experience which enabled him to both see and test the tractor before purchase.
The TTR 4400 HST is a 38hp (28kW) unit capable of producing 113Nm of torque, but the power specifications only tell part of the story.
For starters, the tractor is reversible – allowing operators to simply rotate a turret and turn around 180 degrees in just a few seconds, which means operation with towed or front implements is equally easy.
Like all Antonio Carraro tractors, the TTR 4400 HST is fitted with hydrostatic transmission – hence the HST at the end of its model name.
This enables the tractor to operate at the same speed going either forward or in reverse.
It offers a mechanical selector with three speed ranges, an independent two-speed PTO, and front and rear differential lock.
Arguably the biggest standout feature, and what makes the tractor perfectly suited to hilly conditions such as Morris’ hobby farm, is the manufacturer’s patented Actio chassis.
This greatly increases the tractor’s stability, and Corra says Australian customers often choose Antonio Carraro based on this feature.
“On a tractor, normally you have a fixed chassis which sits on top of the axles,” Corra says.
“In our design, the axles go through the chassis, which brings a lower centre of gravity.
“There is also an oscillation point, not articulation, which means that the front axle moves 15 degrees each side in comparison to the rear axle, or vice versa.
“It creates better stability, and we have a lot of customers in Australia coming to us because of this stability.”
Antonio Carraro lab tests have shown that when fitted with a safety arch, the TTR 4400 HST can handle slopes of up to 43 degrees longitudinal while ascending or descending and up to 36 degrees while inclined either side.
The TTR 4400 HST, along with all Antonio Carraro tractors, can be viewed at www.antoniocarraro.it/au