Kubota Australia are quietly moving up the ranks each year, getting to the point where they are playing in the big kids sand pit now, with acquisitions of major global brands and dealers, growing in success as they expand their product range, now is the time to get on the Kubota bandwagon. September 2017, Kubota announced its purchase of Great Plains, and distribution of their seeding and tillage equipment within Australia. The acquisition of Great Plains was announced at the official dealer’s conference held in Avalon, Victoria. The dealer’s conference attracted 140 Kubota dealers and was the highlight of the year for Kubota; giving them the opportunity to share new ventures, products and projection for 2018 and beyond.
Great Plains Inc. was established in 1976 and have quickly established themselves as a leader in manufacturing of agricultural implements for tillage, seeding and planting. They have always made innovation a priority and are known for their high spec, smartly built machines that are designed with the farmer in mind.
One of the implements on display at the dealer’s conference was the Great Plains Spartan II Air Drill. The Spartan II is a unique design that provides no-till disc drilling that enables fast sowing in the toughest of conditions. Great Plains has completely reworked the seed delivery system for the Spartan II; the new system has half the number of towers which are all mounted on the centre section. Several other
changes have also been made to make the Spartan II easier to operate including; larger primary and secondary hoses to give better seed distribution and airflow, new seed calibration which is located at the rear of the machine making it easier to navigate and Mueller ISOBUS monitoring, which allows better on road handling.
Lars Pasedag, Senior Product manager for Kubota Australia said, “While the first Spartan model had performed well in Australia, particularly into the dairy market for sowing grass pastures, the new addition had a number of improvements.”
Mr Pasedag also mentioned another two key aspects of the Spartan II was the ability to fold the machine under 3metres for easy road transport and features had been included to ensure a good seedbed.
Over the past two weeks, we sent three people from our sales team and three people from our service team to attend Kubota based training in Melbourne. There, they had in depth training about the new Kubota implements including the Great Plains Spartan II. Matthew Scott who is on the Devonport sales team said “The Spartan drill is a truly well-built no till air seeder with its coulter down pressure of up to 250kg it will handle the tough conditions! It offers two 2885 litre hoppers for seed/dry fertiliser applications on the 6m model and two hoppers of 3500 litres on the 9m model.”
Matt also thought that the variable-rate hydraulic drive offers outstanding reliability in all operating conditions. “It incorporates an internal rate sensor to monitor meter speed and uses the same hydraulic system as the drill’s hydraulic down-pressure function. Seed calibration is quick and easy with a convenient stop start button at point of seed collection.”
Both machines fold up to a travel width of 2.95m and when in working mode the wing flex is up to 10 degree down. They offer row spacing’s of 15cm and 19cm. Seeding rates of up to 325kg ha/ha are achievable. Matt said “This
machine will be very beneficial to our operators in Tassie.”
If you think the Spartan II would be an asset to you and your farming needs, contact us today and one of our experienced sales team will able to provide you with more information and a quote. We also have a model of the Spartan II arriving to our Devonport branch in the next week. If you would like to arrange a time to drop in a have one of our sales team show you the product, contact us here. In addition to having this model at our Devonport branch, we will also have it on display at our Agfest site this year.
Published by Hannah Jago.
