Stone crushers are a significant part of FAE’s Australian offering and a range of models are available that cater for all needs
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| FAE Australia Pacific has a wide range of stone crushers for different requirements |
“Difficult things never have easy solutions.”
The words of FAE Australia Pacific managing director Alberto Rosso could apply to many aspects of life but, in this instance, they refer to farmers requiring stone crushing to increase their usable land.
Italian manufacturer FAE has a stone crusher for all requirements, starting with the entry-level STCL that only requires a 70 horsepower (52kW) tractor to operate and can handle rocks up to 15cm in diameter at a depth of up to 15cm.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, the RSH/ HP stone crusher can run on tractors up to 500hp (373kW) and is designed for rocks up to 50cm in diameter and with depths also up to 50cm.
The most popular model among Australian customers is the STC/DT 200 as it caters for the most common tractor sizes owned by farmers.
Designed for tractors between 130hp (97kW) and 220hp (164kW), it can crush stones up to 30cm in diameter and at depths of up to 20cm.
The DT in its model name stands for double transmission, which helps to ensure consistent power distribution across the rotor.
Hardox steel is used to line the crushing chamber along with the skids and ploughshare to help extend the machine’s life span.
The 2.83 tonne model has a working width of 2.06m and total width of 2.49m.
As with other FAE stone crusher models, the STC/ DT 200 also has a choice of teeth options depending on application.
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| Stony ground can be converted to productive farmland |
The most obvious benefit of an FAE stone crusher, Rosso says, is the ability to turn unsuitable farmland into potentially productive paddocks.
“All these machines have one common goal, which is to bring unproductive land to productive land,” he says.
“For a farmer investing in a machine like the STC, it can create a lot of added value for them because they can convert fields that are already in their possession to farmland without needing to rent or buy other land.”
FAE Australia Pacific plans to import even more units of the STC/DT 200 due to its popularity, and Rosso says there was considerable interest in the manufacturer’s stone crushers during AgQuip.
“There are already machines in Queensland and New South Wales, and in Gunnedah we had a lot of interest in stone crushing,” he says.
“I think the STC will be a successful machine and I’m happy we can start to talk about stone crushing in this area, because that is one of the main problems that they have here.”
Rosso’s overall advice to farmers was to be conservative and realise that turning stone-laden land into a usable paddock is “not an overnight solution”.
“Stone crushing is not an easy problem. Difficult things never have easy solutions or simplified solutions,” he says.
“For example, one thing is also you need a creeper tractor with it. You need to go slower rather than at speed, and farmers are starting to realise that you cannot deal with the stone crushing like you are running a disc harrow or cultivator at 10km/h.
“You need to invest the time, fuel and machinery, but at the end you do one pass and you have your field ready for crop.
“Farmers are starting to understand it is not an overnight solution, because you are talking about a machine that is going 0.5 or 0.7 kilometres per hour – you have to go slow.
“Sometimes there’s no easy solution for a problem, but the FAE stone crushers are strong enough that can deal with the difficult conditions of Australia.”
FAE’s line of stone crushers is available through the company’s website at www.fae-group.com/en-au