Agritechnica day 2

Second day at the Agritechnica. Still learning how to get there. There were signs guiding to a remote parking lot with a shuttle bus to the exhibition. I thought that might be a good idea. It wasn't. It took us almost as long to get to the parking lot. Having left a little later, we were there at same time as we parked on Monday, and it took over half an hour more to get to the exhibition by bus. But even though we were at the gate 40 minutes later than on Monday, our legs were finished by 5:30 pm anyway, so no damage done. That half an hour on the bus damaged the bus driver's nerves much more than mine.

In the main blip a view from the ground level up to the engine room of a Case IH combine. Not a pattern like the plough on Monday, but sort of artsy anyway, at least in monochrome.

One interesting thing in Agritechnica is that being the largest agricultural technology fair in the world, it provides a much wider view into the world of farm machinery than what we usually see in Europe now, thanks to lots of manufacturers from other parts of the world, mostly Turkey, India and China.

Machines like the Gregoire grape harvester in the extra #1 and the Same Frutteto orchard tractor in the extra #2 can be common in many parts of Europe, though not around here.

By the way, the Frutteto was interesting in more ways than being much narrower and lower than the tractors we use. Despite being very compact for a 100 hp tractor, it was loaded with all sorts of high end features like front axle suspension, continuously variable transmission and fully electronically controlled hydraulics, and on top of that four-wheel steering, apparently as the only tractor as narrow as this.

The extra #3 is an example of the rest of the world, though it can also be seen as a glimpse back to 40-50 years ago here. The Turkish manufacturer Hattat still makes a tractor that very much resembles the Massey-Ferguson 135 with which I learned to drive when I was nine, the tractor being almost as old. The 135 was followed by a model called 240 which was technically almost identical. Hattat 240 S has some improvements like a better transmission, but still very much seems to be the same. The turn signal switch seemed to be of much lower quality though. The engine not being up to current emission standards, the tractor obviously can't be sold in the EU.