Farmers and contractors travelling seeding gear on public roads are on the rise, driving manufactures toward designs capable of narrow transport widths.
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Despite changes to the National Agricultural Vehicles Class 1 Exemption rules, which came into effect this month, promising to harmonise travel classes across five zones, state variations are still in effect when it comes to pilot vehicle requirements and widths.
However, with some state, zone, equipment and situational exceptions, generally equipment less than 3.7 metres is now able to travel without an escort vehicle.
AF Gason agricultural division head and director Greg Gason said the company's new NT8000 planter had been released at the Sungold field days in Warrnambool Victoria earlier this year based on a design brief to ensure it could be travelled without a pilot vehicle.
"Not having to travel with a pilot is a huge benefit and we hadn't had a machine that fell into that category," he said.
"The NT8000 offers an eight metre working width bar and folds up to under 3.5 metres. It is a tyned implement that fits our system."
2019 also saw the launch of Gasons's new parallelogram system at the Wimmera machinery field days.
"We have had a parallelogram system for many years, however last year we revamped it and took a significant amount of cost out of it and made it a lot more user-friendly to adjust," he said.
"With the changes we have made, I believe it is a lot more reliable unit as well."
Mr Gason said the new parallelogram press wheel assembly did not require any tools for simple adjustments to the sowing depth or press wheel loading.
He said other upgrades meant the press wheel tyre options included both 55 millimetre and the 80mm wide wedge shape in either solid or semi-pneumatic and the seed tube now included a hard-faced bed forming plate.
