NOT too many cane farmers are using harvesters built locally 46 years ago, but there are two brothers in the Goldsborough doing just that.
The Dockery brothers, John and Jim, have been cane farming all their lives up in the Goldsborough Valley, just a few kilometres west of Gordonvale.
The property they are on now was bought by their parents in 1946 after cane farming on another farm further up the valley.
The brothers purchased a Don-Mizzi cane harvester in 1967 and have used it every year since.
Although the machine has given the Dockery brothers true and faithful service over the decades, it will finally be retired next year, and they hope it will end up in a museum.
The Don-Mizzi harvester is an invention of Ingham local Lawrence Mizzi, and this model has gone through a few modifications over the years. Originally it was bought with a Fiat 615hp mounted, then in 1970 when the Fiat 750hp came onto the market, John and Jim bought and mounted this model to the Don-Mizzi.
John and Jim's cane farm is on comparatively hilly terrain, and the extra horsepower came in handy on the hilly ground. In 1972 Fiat released a 1000hp model and the Dockery brothers bought and mounted this model to the Don Mizzi. In 1973 they fitted a turbo charger to the Fiat 1000.
But the modifications were not contained to the tractor powering the harvester. In 1968 they recognised a fault with the extraction of cane rubbish going into the bins and attached a fan-driven extractor at the head of the elevator feeding the cane bin.
"There was also a problem with the topper, which originally had two feeder, chains so we removed one of the chain mechanisms and fitted a (home-made) roller drum to the topping mechanism," John told the North Queensland Register.
This worked well and is still part of the harvester. The Don-Mizzi was designed for both rear and side delivery of cut cane into the cane bins, but because of the terrain on the Dockery farm, the brothers always used the side- delivery system.
"There was always a problem with the elevator delivering cane into the bin when on hills or going over washouts, where the elevator would go down onto the cane bin," John said.
Another modification effected was a sideways intake of cooling air into the radiator of the tractor, as too much rubbish from the cane clogged the radiator cooling core when it sucked in air from the front.
Jim recalled a season before 1948 when his parents lost 200 tonnes of cane to the cane grub.
"They introduced the cane toad to control the grub, but it didn't work, and now we have the cane grub and the cane toads," Jim said.
The brothers are in their 70s now and have decided to retire.
"We're tired now and want to put the 're' in front of tired," John said.
They have obtained development approval for 80 rural residential blocks on the farm and are hoping to attract a buyer to develop the subdivision.
