A young Irish agricultural machinery engineer has created his own tedder/rake combination, thought to be the only such machine on the market and hopes to make it commercially available by 2024.

Based in Ballindine, in Co Mayo, Michael Clarke (27), has made a prototype of his Dualstar 6000E 20ft tedder/rake combo that he said would save farmers and contractors significant costs.

Michael, who works full-time as a mechanical design engineer for a machinery company, has always had desires to become self-employed and has formed Clarke Agri Engineering. Whilst he also manufactures grass harrows, it is the tedder/rake combo that he hopes will be popular on the already bulging silage machinery market.

Michael explained: “The Dualstar 6000E is a 20ft machine that works as a tedder spreading out the grass and then as a rake raking it into rows again. This machine saves farmers and contractors from buying two separate machines and running them individually on two tractors. The costs saving here will be significant as there is only one machine to maintain."

The Dualstar 6000E is hydraulically operated and manufactured with a steel chassis, with four steel rotors giving a working width of 20ft, and Michael advised that the machine needed a tractor with at least 80hp to operate it. The machine has its own independent hydraulic system and can be easily switched between rake and tedder from the tractor cab.

When the machine is in tedder mode, the axle folds up and the four rotors operate against each other. Then they work with each other when rowing up.

While the prototype machine has been completed, Michael said he still needed to make a few tweaks to produce a demo machine that will, hopefully, run in next year’s silage season.

“I need to alter a few angles on the machine when tedding to make the grass shake out a bit better,” Michael said. “I also may need to look at adding two bigger hydraulic motors to make it work faster when tedding.

“I’m only working on this at nights and weekends but I need to get the changes made and have a machine fully operational for trials next season.

“It’s only when I get a few operational hours on the machine next season that I can think about launching it commercially by 2024. A commercial launch fully depends on the price of steel and how that may change over the next couple of years,” he added.

When finalised, Michael said he could easily add a rotor to either end of the machine to make it six rotors with a working width of 30ft, or even up to eight rotors covering 40ft.

The 20ft machine is mounted on the three-point linkage, weighs 2200kg, is 5m long and has a transport height of 4m.

While there is no exact price for the machine currently, Michael is confident it will cost less than if buying a tedder and rake individually.

“I need to sit down and think about how I can manufacture and distribute the machine commercially,” said Michael. “I have a few meetings set up to discuss these details soon.”