Rostselmash: triumphal test-drive

Summer is not only the season of crop harvesting and other field works, but also the period of exhibitions, demonstration shows and test-drives of agricultural materiel. Summer 2013 was the victory time for the Rostselmash Company.

During three months, Rostselmash was able to cover almost all regional agricultural arrangements and hold 11 own Days of Field. The most significant result of such arrangements was the mass of inquiries from agrarians on purchasing the materiel, who could see by themselves, how much the local agricultural materiel could evolved.

One more important achievement for the company was the series of victories of ACROS 580 harvester (Russian foreign car, as agrarians call it) and TORUM 760 highly-efficient rotary machine of the last generation. And these victories were forged in the real conditions in the fields of various regions of endless Russia during the comparative tests.

Competition in the agricultural materiel market is mostly felt in the segment of highly-efficient harvesters. The agro-business managers usually face with fact, that the objective information on comparative characteristics of the same class machines is almost impossible to find. This gap has been tried to fill in 2011-2012, when the comparative tests of materiel of the leading world manufacturers was carried out under aegis of Ministry of Industry of the RF. During the tests, the Rostselmash harvesters showed excellent results, which were never published.

That’s why, many agro-business owners have to perform the comparative tests of machines by themselves to select the most suitable materiel for them. However, they also not always publish the results of their tests. Probably, the cause of this is the fact, that not all the agrarians are ready to acknowledge the evident: materiel made in Russia not only concedes, but exceeds the foreign machines in respect of many criteria.

The first declared triumph of the Rostselmash materiel can be called the competition in the fields of Segeyevskoye farm, Podgorensky district of Voronezh Region. Here, Aprodech agro-holding made to compete honestly 8 models of materiel, among which was ACROS 580.

— It was exclusively our initiative, — says Ivan Savchenko, Director General of Aprotech-Podgorenskaya agro-farm. — One thing is the materiel specification stated in advertizing leaflets. And, usually, another thing is the operation of this materiel directly in the field in specific conditions. And it was very important for us to see this operation by ourselves.
The tests were carried out within one hour period in the fields seeded with winter wheat having yield capacity of 39.2-41 centner/hectare. All the machines were put in the similar conditions. As per the testing results report, the Russian harvester surpassed other participants in several key parameters at once.

First of all, ACROS 580 showed the best result in respect of efficiency (16.85 ton of wheat per hour). It is more than the rest by 1 — 9%. In the conditions of growing fuel prices, it was also the most economical in fuel consumption — 7.22 liters of fuel per hectare. Great power of foreign machines had the bad impact on them: at less efficiency they consumed twice more fuel per hectare. Besides, the experts recorded, that ACROS has the least losses of grain during harvester — only 0.35%, but the rest harvesters have the grain losses of 0.4-3%. It was stated in the final report of the agro-holding.
Another demonstrative test showed that, during the comparative tests in the fields of Orel Region, the efficiency of TORUM 760 grain harvester was higher than this of western machines by 19%. The materiel test-drive was carried out in the fields of Orelselprom LLC of SC Cherkizovo. The experts and observers there were specialists of Kubanskaya and Tsentralno-Chernozemnaya machine-testing stations.

Igor Prokhiro, Director on work with key customers of Rostselmash, who observed the competition, said, that the working conditions were not so suitable.
— Upon the tossing results, we got not the best field. Thus, the first day we harvested the field with crop capacity lower than this of the rest participants: 584 centner/hectare opposing 66 and 61. The second day our field was in the bottomland. Considering that before it was raining, the soil was viscous.

However, upon the preliminary results of the both control harvesting days, the adverse conditions did not prevented TORUM harvester to show the higher efficiency (37.3 and 39.93 t/hour), what from 6% up to 33% was higher, than the same of competitors.

Besides, the grain losses of TORUM during the harvesting were lower than those of competitors.
— TORUM 760 passed the comparative tests together with harvesters of such large manufacturers of agricultural machines as John Deer (S 670) and Claas (Tucano 480), and showed the impressive results, — commented Mikhail Zherdev, head of Central-Chernozem state zonal machine-testing station. — The tests proved that TORUM 760 significantly surpassed the competitors in respect of harvesting quality, terms, load, and other parameters. For example, the grain losses behind the TORUM thresher are minimal — only 0.22-0.47%, at normative parameter of not more than 1.5 %. And the efficiency reaches almost 40 t/hour. The Rostselmash machine, even in adverse agricultural conditions existing in black soil area, could work at high level.

TORUM, the undisputed leader of the comparative tests, was sent to Kursk, and then to Bryansk Region after Orel Region. In the nearest future, the winner should be in the fields of Tula agrarians, who also desired to test the highly-efficient machine in operation, which has already shown the best results in various fields and conditions.
— These tests again demonstrated to the agro-business leaders, that our harvesters are ready not only compete with western models in equal conditions, but also surpass them, — said Alexei Moshnenko, Marketing Director of the Rostselmash Company. — We are ready to continue the practice of comparative tests, because we think, that the buyers of agricultural materiel should know the real situation in the field of modern machine-building.