TractorsDriving comfort thanks to new premium steering

Staying on track has never been easier than with the new John Deere 7R 350, according to Henryk Boćkowski, who partic­u­larly appre­ci­ates the new EZ Ballast System in addi­tion to the reac­tive steering. This allows the farmer and contractor to switch easily between field work and road trans­port.

A farm from Poland has expe­ri­enced for itself the advan­tages of a John Deere 7R 350. The 270ha farm of the Boćkowski family, which is run by Henryk and his two sons Daniel and Patryk, is located in Chmielewo in north-eastern Poland. In addi­tion to managing their own agri­cul­tural busi­ness, they also work as contrac­tors.

They bought their first John Deere machine over 20 years ago when they started offering agri­cul­tural services. It was a forage harvester. After that, they invested in newer JD machines. A forage harvester model 8300i is currently in use on the farm. The next is to be a model from the 9000 series with a 12-row header to meet the needs of the family’s growing number of customers. The Boćkowskis also own a John Deere T670i combine and an M962i sprayer with a 30m wide boom.

A tractor for field work and trans­porta­tion

The Boćkowskis bought their first John Deere tractor – a 7R 250 – less than four years ago and another one at the begin­ning of this year. Henryk likes the prac­tical solu­tion of the EZ Ballast System on the 7R 350.

The EZ weight weighs 1,700kg and can be mounted and dismounted within a few seconds at the push of a button from the cab without leaving the seat. This allows the farmer to easily switch between field work and road trans­port, saving a lot of time and fuel.

Every­thing at a glance: Various features can be set on the display – including the reac­tive steering system.

The John Deere 7R 350 offers maximum cab comfort thanks to proac­tive vibra­tion damping, massage func­tions, elec­tronic control and 65° seat rota­tion.

The Boćkowskis believe that the John Deere 7R 350 is more stable and safer to operate thanks to the reac­tive steering system. This is partic­u­larly true at high speeds. The driving expe­ri­ence is compa­rable to driving a car – very comfort­able. The 7R 250 without the modernised steering system, which the company also uses, offers a direct compar­ison.

There is a notice­able differ­ence in the driving behav­iour: The 7R 250 reacts to small steering move­ments, while the driver no longer has to worry about keeping in lane when taking a bend with the new 7R 350. “The oper­ator can even let go of the steering wheel and the auto­matic reac­tive steering reset allows the tractor to easily exit the curve almost like a car,” says Patryk. “If this option had been avail­able earlier, we would have chosen the reac­tive guid­ance system for the older 7R 250 as well.”

Henryk talks about a customer’s expe­ri­ence with the 7R 350. He suggested that the farmer take the tractor to his field himself via a public road. When Henryk asked him about his oper­ating expe­ri­ence, the farmer hadn’t even noticed that the tractor had driven out of the bend by itself. He was taken by surprise when he let go of the steering wheel in the next bend and it auto­mat­i­cally returned to the centre posi­tion.

Thanks to the reac­tive steering, the tractor drives out of the bend almost like a car.

Patryk Boćkowski

Long hours of work in a tractor should be done under optimal condi­tions. To meet this require­ment, a number of solu­tions have been incor­po­rated into the 7R to increase driving comfort. Henryk partic­u­larly appre­ci­ates the leather uphol­stery, the massage func­tion in the seat, the elec­tronic controls, a 65° seat rota­tion and vibra­tion damping.

Patryk empha­sizes that, in addi­tion to a leather steering wheel, an air-condi­tioning system and a first-class sound system, a spacious refrig­er­ator with a wide cooling area is also indis­pens­able – and he empha­sises how impor­tant the cab’s sound insu­la­tion is to him.

About the company

The Boćkowski family’s farm covers 270ha.

About a third of the farm area has good soil, while the rest is of medium quality. The farmers grow maize, wheat, rye, trit­i­cale and rape­seed. Every­thing they harvest from their fields is sold, even though they could use it as animal feed. However, for a number of reasons, they have decided to purchase ready-mixed feeds from recog­nised manu­fac­turers instead.

Another focus is pig farming. The farm has 500 sows, and the piglets are fattened. However, as there are not enough rearing places, surplus piglets are sold. The family plan to expand their facil­i­ties to enable a completely closed system in future.

In addi­tion to managing their own busi­ness, the Boćkowskis also offer trans­porta­tion and agri­cul­tural services. The agri­cul­tural contract work involves soil tillage for conven­tional and no-till farming, drilling and harvesting of grain, as well as grass and maize silage harvesting. They also spread fertiliser, carry out spraying work and bale straw and hay. Last year, they were able to culti­vate 1,530ha with just one drill, and using their John Deere 8300i forage harvester with a 10-row Kemper header, they cut 1,070ha of maize silage.

They can only achieve such a high area output by working almost around the clock during the season and by assigning two oper­a­tors to each machine. They only take breaks when absolutely neces­sary for service, main­te­nance and cleaning work.

For the trans­porta­tion of goods, they have two trucks, which they use to make trips abroad, as well as two tipping trailers which are used for contract work in the country. During the harvest season, all vehi­cles are used on-site to trans­port the harvested crops. Instead of the usual semi-trailers with a super­struc­ture, simple plat­forms are used to trans­port straw and hay.

Smart Farming

Today, Henrik’s main task is to operate the machines in the field, while his sons have divided the farm manage­ment and tasks in the barn between them. Never­the­less, they also work as machine oper­a­tors – and are committed to preci­sion tech­nology.

Henrik no longer wants to do without the tractor’s navi­ga­tion system, because it makes his work in the fields much easier. The Boćkowskis also use smart farming solu­tions like JDLink, a telemetry system which trans­mits the machines’ perfor­mance data in real time. This means they can display a partic­ular machine in the Oper­a­tions Centre app and imme­di­ately know where the machine is, whether it is working or moving. Thanks to the app on their smart­phones, they can also view the oper­ating para­me­ters of the machine and receive error alerts. If neces­sary, they can view the machine’s oper­ating monitor and connect with the driver or a service partner.

Henryk Boćkowski runs his busi­ness with his two sons Daniel and Patryk.

The field bound­aries were measured using the real-time kine­matic posi­tioning (RTK) signal and are stored in the Oper­a­tions Centre. For field work, the team use the satel­lite-assisted guid­ance system to avoid over­laps. In addi­tion, the imple­ments are equipped with section control, so that there is no overlap when drilling, spraying or fertiliser spreading.

This year, they are also working with vari­able rate appli­ca­tions for the first time. To do this, they had their John Deere dealer create soil maps which can then be used to inform the rate of input required.