Seppi gives old Christmas tree plantation new lease of life

Wexford-based construction and civil contractors Kevin Coleman Construction has developed a niche business in land reclamation in recent years.

First setting up his company in 2005, Kevin initially started off carrying out all types of civil engineering, such as groundworks, road building, structural steel installation and commercial building construction. As the years progressed, he expanded more into the plant side of the business, which opened up doors into site clearance, and a little bit of farm work, such as drainage works.

Kevin explained that he always liked doing work on farms. His son Conor joined the business in recent years, and he too was also fond of the farm work.

One day, the duo were getting parts off local machinery dealer Green Equipment Supplies, which specialises in the supply of mulching and hedge-cutting equipment. They stumbled upon the Seppi Starsoil multifunctional tiller-mulcher. With some other Seppi kit in the fleet, and after tossing and turning on the idea, the Colemans decided to take the plunge on a used machine in December 2021.

Seppi background

Seppi is an Italian manufacturer, well-known for producing quality equipment. The firm’s range includes flail mowers, rotary mowers, maintenance kit for orchards and vineyards, and heavy-duty forest and road mulchers for tractors and excavators. The initial machine the Colemans bought was a Starsoil, which is a soil tiller and forestry tiller. It is capable of tilling soil to a depth of 40cm, crushing stones with a diameter of 30cm and mulching wood with a diameter of 40cm.

At the heart of the machine is a rotor equipped with tungsten carbide hammer flails. The rotor bashes the rock, clay or timber against the shearbar, before the material receives a second bashing against the back door, before it exits the hood at the rear.

Converting plantation to grassland

In July, the Colemans traded in their 2.5m Starsoil for a new 2.5m Maxisoil. Seppi claim its 3.5m Maxisoil is the world’s largest multifunctional tiller-mulcher, with the 2.5m unit containing the same DNA. When we visited the Colemans, they were working on a job near Monasterevin, on a site that straddled the Laois-Kildare border.

The 106ac site was planted as a Christmas tree plantation 30 years ago, but was let go wild, and was clearfelled last year. The new owners wanted to restore the site to tillage and grassland, and the job was put on to the Colemans.

A Fendt 716 tractor and a Seppi Midiforst mulcher and a Komatsu 210 excavator equipped with a Seppi BMS 125 mulcher entered the site at first, clearing the thrash and light overgrowth.

The Seppi BMS is an excavator-mounted forestry mulcher designed for excavators in the 15t to 30t class to handle grass, brush and wood, capable of mulching vegetation up to 30cm in diameter.

Once the tree stumps were exposed, Kevin explained that another Komatsu 170 excavator with a Dipperfox stump crusher was used to tackle the stumps, before the Maxisoil was brought in to tackle the job.

The Dipperfox 850 Pro stump crusher is designed for 14t to 30t excavators. This vertical stump grinder is built in Estonia and is designed to be much quicker than traditional stump removal methods.

The manufacturer says a key part of its performance is a patented gear changing mechanism, which converts revolving speed into torque.

It features cutting blades and central screw. The attachment requires an oil flow of 110-220l/min and a pressure of 180-350 bar.

While this was happening, another Komatsu excavator with heavy-duty Axer tree shears was felling the hardwood around the boundary, while a John Deere forwarder was gathering this up, which turned out to be over 70 loads. This timber will soon be chipped, and brought to the Edenderry power station.

Once the brash and vegetation were cleared and the stumps were broken out, the Maxisoil was put into the land to chop and integrate the remaining material.

“The Maxisoil would have been well fit to take out the tree stumps, but we figured that with the scale of the job and the fact we only started it in early September, it would make more sense to keep the Maxisoil moving at a higher forward speed. Our plan was to get as much of the job done as possible, before the weather got too wet. Luckily, the weather played ball and we now have all 106 acres of the ground tilled, which is something we didn’t think we’d achieve at the beginning of September,” explained Kevin.

The 6.5t Seppi Maxisoil is a multifunctional tiller-mulcher. It’s similar to the Colemans’ previous 3.5t Starsoil, but is a larger machine with much more capacity. It’s designed to till soils and roads, mill stumps and mulch wood.

It’s also designed for maintaining roads, for land reclamation, for the preparation of ski slopes and to clean up brash after felling operations.

The large rotor crushes the rock, clay or timber against the shear bar, before the material receives a second bashing against the back hood, before exiting. It grinds roots and stumps to a depth of 35cm, and crushes stones and wood up to 50cm in diameter. Depending on the gearbox choice, the Maxisoil is designed for tractors between 300hp and 450hp.

The V-Lock rotor is kitted out with fixed hammers with tungsten carbide inserts. The machine is fitted with a transmission cooling system integrated with an automatic remote temperature control device that eliminates the risk of overheating of the transmission. Power is transmitted through double carbon chain gear belts.

The frame is fully protected with interchangeable Hardox wear-proof plates, while the chassis is made of high-tensile and wear-resistant steel with replaceable wear plates.

An adjustable crushing shear bar and rear grille are used to set the desired degree of crushing.

Transmission

Similar to the Starsoil, the Maxisoil features a two-speed transmission, with the rotor speed controlled on the IsoBus terminal in the cab. The operator can change the setting during operation, with the fast gear designed for mulching wood and the slow gear for crushing stone and tilling soil.

The unit is available in a 2.5m or 3.5m version, and is optionally equipped with a hydraulic-controlled roller, which acts as a compacting roller and depth control, while in its upward position acts as a guard frame. The 2.5m model is priced at €170,000 plus VAT.

With the Maxisoil being such an abrasive machine, we were keen to find out how the Colemans price this type of work.

Within Kevin’s construction business, he employs a quantity surveyor. Every job is priced individually. Kevin gave us an example. If he works the 2.5m machine at a forward speed of 1km/h, tilling the ground to six inches deep, he is moving the equivalent of 375m3 per hour (825 tonnes), which is the equivalent of 37 rigid lorry loads of clay and material.

The unit is being operated on a Claas Axion 920, which is 330hp on the shaft and has been modified to put out extra power.

Change of tyres

In order to have the tractor the same width as the mulcher to avoid bursting a tyre on a sharp stump, a new set of rims and heavy-duty ply BKT tyres were ordered and fitted.

This is for situations where there are large stumps to be mulched, and the machine is operated in reverse to do so.

Depending on the conditions and the job, forward speed varies from 0.4-2km/h, with fuel consumption varying from 60 to 75 litres per hour.

Land reclamation jobs make up 90% of the day-to-day work with the Maxisoil.

Jobs are generally priced by the acre, with prices ranging from €650/ac plus VAT right the way up to €3,000/ac plus VAT.

Road reclamation makes up the remainder, and is generally priced by the linear metre, but pricing also depends on the width of the road.

A sample cost for a typical farm road is in the region of €4/m to €5/m. Kevin maintains that if a farmer was to buy in stone from a quarry and properly grade and level it with diggers and a roller, it would cost at least 50% more than the farmer using their own stone from a gravel pit, crushing it down with the Seppi and land levelling it before vibrator rolling.

“The Maxisoil is a phenomenal piece of kit, but it’s an owner-driver machine. If you know the machine and you know your ground, you would get away with checking the rotor once every hour. The rotor is equipped with 96 hammer flails, with each flail costing €240 plus VAT. A bad operator on this machine would cost you a significant amount of money,” Kevin said.

“The build quality is serious, but the material is that abrasive, it needs to be. The cooling system on the machine is excellent. It runs away at 56 degrees at its ease. If it begins to get any hotter, the fan automatically kicks in and cools the machine, without the need to stop. With our previous Starsoil, the tractor would stall the machine, whereas with the Maxisoil, it’s the machine which will stop the tractor.

“Since 2022, we’ve completed in the region of 1,200 acres of land reclamation works with the machine.

“We are almost booked out with work for next summer, with a lot of ash dieback plantations coming on stream. Due to regulations, although a lot of these farmers would like to put the land back into grass, they are going down the agroforestry route.”

‘Phenomenal’

“The amount of different work the machine can do is phenomenal. We are learning every day and trying to educate people,” Kevin concluded.