MOLONEYS’ LINE-UP
bought a new 2,500 gallon Abbey Machinery 7.5m Tri App slurry tanker from Abbey Retail in Nenagh. The Tri-App applicator is designed to apply slurry to the soil surface, thereby maximising available nitrogen and lowering ammonia emissions. Delivery of this machine is still pending so it will likely get its first true test in spring 2019.
Thomas Moloney explains the reason for the new addition: “We noticed that lot of farmers have invested in bigger storage tanks but have not updated their slurry tankers because they feel the contractor can spread and cover the ground faster.”
Some of the New Holland tractors have been specially modified with railroad gear to accommodate tree work done for Irish Rail. Each tractor is fitted with a rail bogey similar to what you might see under a train. This allows the tractor to travel a railroad and cut hedges to ensure trains can pass smoothly. Not surprisingly, the specialised nature of this work means it can usually only be carried out at night time when trains aren’t running. This sees the team working a lot of nights, 12 New Holland Tractors 3 Moffet saw hedgecutters 3 McConnel flail hedgecutters
Various grassland equipment including mowers, balers, rakes, tedders and fertiliser spreaders
Various slurry equipment including agitators, slurry tanks and trailing shoe equipment
Various tree surgery equipment including woodchippers
JCB excavator with various attachments such as mulcher heads and tree shears
Dumptrailers and Lowloader
often only starting at close to midnight, and tractors have also been fitted with extra lights. All drivers have to undergo a lot of training before they can do this specialised work, with some drivers having to do up to ten different training courses. The insurance costs are quite high and the machines have to be independently certified by a company in England.
The team own and run three McConnel flail hedge cutters and three Moffet saws as part of their tree and hedge cutting wing of the business. According to Thomas, last year a lot of farmers put off hedge cutting as ground got quite soft in the winter. As a consequence, there is a lot of work to get through this autumn with some customers having two years of woody growth to manage in hedge rows.
For tree surgery work, the team use an imposing looking heavy-duty tree shears they bought from an Austrian company. For these jobs the hydraulically driven shears is attached to the team’s 18 tonne JCB excavator and is capable of handling tree stumps up to 16 inches in diameter.