In this week’s machinery section I got the chance to put JCB’s latest offering, the 419s, through its paces on a silage pit in Laois and found it to be a worthy replacement for the popular 418s. This machine was the first one to go into use on this island since its launch at SIMA back in February.

In the second part of Peter Thomas Keaveney’s Canadian series, he looks at the seeding and spraying equipment and operations on the 9,000-acre operation. Mechanical stone picking is also used on the farm, which would have made a lot of our lives easier over the years if it was a viable solution here. The sheer size of the gear makes for serious output that is unheard of in this country.

On the motoring page I report on my test drive of the Mercedes E Class All-Terrain on and off road. I found that the big comfy motorway eater has some other skills.

In vintage, Simon Henley looks at David Brown’s first attempt at getting into the Turbo-charged tractor market.

The Hattat 240s has been introduced to the Irish market by Billy O’Dwyer Farm Machinery.

The 240 is produced under licence from Massey Ferguson by Hattat in Turkey. For this reason, it could easily be mistaken for the original 240 which was a firm favourite on Irish farms.

The 240s comes with a 48hp engine and power steering. It weighs in at exactly 2t. A cab and pick-up hitch are options which I believe most, if not all Irish buyers will go for.

Billy O’Dwyer Farm Machinery is based near Thurles in Co Tipperary. Billy’s marketing slogan for the new 240s is: “The dream of red continues.”

Billy held an open day earlier this month and said there was great interest in the little red.

Hattat also produces a larger T4000 series tractor which produces 102 HP from a Perkins four-cylinder engine, with 24 forward and 24 reverse synchro shuttle. It has a lift capacity of 4.5t and weighs 3.88t with no weights on board.

Interestingly, the Hattat company has been producing Valtra A series tractors in Turkey since 2007 under an agreement with Valtra which stemmed from a previous agreement where Hattat sold Valtra products in Turkey.

With the New A series on the horizon, this agreement should push on the technical ability of this Turkish operation.