A Queensland farmer is using a compact Iseki TG6370P tractor to run his 40-acre vegetable farm and his nearby 160-acre sheep and cattle farm in South East Queensland.
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After owning larger 100hp-plus tractors for years, Merv Keevers and his wife, Joan, decided they needed a smaller tractor with a shuttle shift and slow snail-and-tortoise gearing for planting.
“Many tractors have gone away from the shuttle shift, which makes for ease of operation, especially for young people,” Merv says. “But I definitely wanted it.”
He says he’d previously worked with a shuttle shift on other farms, “but they didn’t have the slow gearing and the tractor was idling all day long, which wasn’t good for the engine”.
“I wanted the snail-and-tortoise gearbox because you can keep the revs up and it’s better for the engine,” Merv says.
“I looked around and was pretty taken with the Iseki TG6370P straight away when I saw the gearing it had on it.”
Rated at 36hp, the tractor is suited to the slower and smoother operating Keevers requires for his work towing a variety of implements at both of his properties.
He says he has already put 100 hours on the clock since the purchase at Seng’s Sales and Service in Kingaroy.
“With the vegies, we use it for ground preparation, laying out irrigation, planting and harvesting,” he says. “We also use it for making our compost, as it came with a bucket.
“With the livestock we use it for feeding out to sheep, and with our cattle we use it for fencing, mowing and general farm work.
“It runs a planter and a set of tine rippers, a twin-furrow mouldboard plough, and a set of 16-plate hydraulic tandem discs. It also pulls fertiliser spreaders and it handles them all well.”
Merv says his new Iseki also gets some work pulling a hydraulically driven 1.5 tonne mulch dropper.
“It suits the tractor quite nicely. The Iseki comes with twin hydraulic outlets at the end of it, so it’s easy to adapt it to any hydraulic machinery you have.
“I don’t think I would buy another big tractor. I would probably buy another one the same as this. It comes with quick hitch and has all the modern things that I was looking for in a small tractor.
“I’ve found that by changing the way we work our implements, it virtually does the work of a big tractor,” he adds.
“The ease of operation and weight of the tractor is also an advantage. We trail it between the two properties and it has cut down the use of our big tractors.”
The small Iseki also uses less fuel than Merv’s larger tractors, and he has noticed lower running costs because of this.
Despite the size, he says it’s still got a comfortable amount of space in the cab.
“It has a flat floor, which is good for leg room. The instrument panel and all the gearing are right at your fingertips, so you don’t have to move all around,” he says.
“The clutch is right at your feet and my wife also finds it easy to drive. We have two-wheel and four-wheel-drive and they both offer ease of operation.”