Honest victory

Not even a demo show, but rather a true race took place on the premises of Ust-Sertinskoye farming enterprise, a subsidiary of Siberian Business Union (Kemerovo oblast).

Farmers compared the functionality of the Massey Ferguson 8690 which can develop 340 hp with that of the 420 hp Kirovets available in their machinery fleet. The machines carried out tillage and ploughing operations in parallel. A field straight after harvesting was chosen as the testing ground. Of primary interest to farmers were two characteristics - output and fuel consumption.

Both tractors were coupled to a 9-metre-wide cultivator whose specification called for towing with tractors of 400 hp and more. It was adjusted to work at the depth of 17 cm out of the maximum 30 cm.

‘Our tractor got ahead of the rival by a body and a half’, says Maxim Gruzin, Manager of Sales Department of Novosibirsk branch of AgroCentreZakharovo. ‘And that at half the diesel consumption (fuel consumption of Kirovets amounted to 10 l/ha, whereas that of MF 8690 was 4.8 l/ha). It was just one pass, had the tractors covered the entire field, the leader would have pulled still further away.’

MF 8690 comes short of the counterpart in horse power, but it gets a ‘second breath’ from the high-tech 6-cylinder AGCO Power 4 Generation 8,4 l diesel engine. The maximum torque of 1540 Nm is reached already at 1,400-1,600 rpm. Diesel consumption is less due to the well-coordinated work of the engine and the DYNA VT transmission which automatically dictates the most efficient engine rpm required to go at a desired speed.

‘If we draw an analogy to imported passenger vehicles, another benefit of MF 8690 is that you know what to expect from it’, says Maksim Gruzin. ‘The tractor has a fairly simple design, it is undemanding in terms of maintenance: all that is necessary in the first years of operation is routine maintenance and consumables. Operating costs of the Russian counterpart will be higher starting from the very first year of service.’