TENTERDEN farmer Anthony Hall is introducing a new wildcard into agriculture.
In fact, it’s called The Wildcard and it’s a unique seed and fertiliser trailer that ticks the boxes for farmers looking for time-saving and flexibility at seeding while having a multi-use unit available year-round.
“I wanted a stand-alone unit for a range of jobs and it had to be easy to operate and low maintenance,” Mr Hall said.
“I designed it as a two-bin unit mounted on a tri-axle trailer with a capacity of betweem 42.5 and 47 cubic metres, or equal bin splits to hold, for example, 35 tonnes of wheat.”
Splits also are available for other product configurations.
Mr Hall uses The Wildcard with a 13 tonne/12t seed/ fertiliser split for a road legal 25t of product.
The features of The Wildcard are virtually everywhere you look, with Mr Hall using more than 20 years experience as a grain producer in his designs.
For example, both bins tip inwards, independently or together – it took Mr Hall two years to formulate what he wanted to achieve.
A remote control activates the bin gates with grain or fertiliser flowing into a central telescopic chute with flow self-regulated by the speed of the auger feeding out.
The Wildcard comes with an optional auger (a handy back-up if the air seeder auger fails) which can be easily handled to change from unloading, to loading into both bins from trucks, bulka bags or silos.
The 20 centimetre (8 inch)-diameter auger features a stainless steel tube and flighting with a 4.2 metre (14 foot) reach and as a tag trailer, the auger can be used to unload a truck or front trailer bin without unhooking.
This feature, Mr Hall says, is ideal for carting urea from the depot to the farm.
“For example, you can jack-knife the dolly a bit to unload the front bin into the fertiliser spreader,” he said.
“It also can fit in a pocket road train configuration, providing more capacity to back-load.”
Auger height also can be raised or lowered to reach into field bins and sheep and cattle feeders or bulka bags on the ground.
The hopper design enables the auger and hopper to be self-cleaning, with a quick clean-out to stop seed or fertiliser contamination.
Maintenance is simple with only two bearings on the auger that are easily accessible to grease.
The seamlessly-constructed bins corners have been blanked off to eliminate shovelling out corners and the resultant space is used as tool compartments.
Each bin has four 360 degrees wash-down heads, or sprinklers.
A simple camlock connection on the outside of each bin to a fire-fighter hose enables washing without entering the bins.
Anthony says The Wildcard has many uses, including carting bulk fertiliser to sheds, providing split fertiliser or grain loads, carting grain at harvest and loading itself from other trucks.
The definition of a wildcard normally refers to cards, where it can have any value or other property at the discretion of the player holding it.
That about sums up The Wildcard.
More information: Anthony Hall 0418 524 046 or wildcardtrailers.com.au
