Roadsides and ditches need to be mowed and maintained. A corded lawn mower won’t cut it, but this duo certainly will. A farm tractor and a wheeled excavator, outfitted with Herder implements (in yellow).
A Massey Ferguson -or simply MF- 7718 Dyna farm tractor is working as tool carrier. Farm tractors are highly versatile, just like the guys who usually operate them.
The business end, a mower/mulcher for roadside and ditch bank maintenance, capable of working under any angle.
This mowing job is a picnic for both machinery and operator. But your tableware, pretzels, and sandwiches are toast!
The MF’s teammate is an Atlas 150W-blue wheeled excavator, powered by Deutz. Normally, best known for its good earthmoving capacities.
Attached to the Atlas, an extension boom with a mowing bucket for cleaning up ditches thoroughly…
…which is legally required and will be monitored by the proper authorities. Water management and all that.
Similar gear does roadsides over here but youd hardly call the results lawn like they munch light scrub grass bracken trees anything that has sprung from the ground
Understandably, the whole country here is littered with this kind of machinery.
Mostly owned by agricultural contractors, who also do a lot of earthmoving jobs. So the tractors, normally around 200 hp and always 4WD, are truly multifunctional.
I never knew that these mower implements were called “herders”. Interesting.
My town has two devices that do this sort of roadside mowing. One is a herder very similar to the one in your first example. The other is what to me looks like a flat mower deck. I’ve seen both attached to either a wheeled excavator or sometimes a big tractor.
I have to admit that I have “issues” with how both of these are used by the road crew in my town. I definitely understand the need for roadside mowing…but just today as I inched out from a side road onto a larger road, peering past the large growth of weeds that blocked my ability to clearly see and make my left turn I observed “Why is it that they spend all of this time mowing and NEVER get the big clumps of weeds that actually block your ability to see safely??!!!” And sure enough, beyond the intersection the underbrush was all mulched from a recent pass from the herder or mower deck.
Frankly, I think that the road crew dudes just like driving around mulching small trees and road side shrubbery…and have kind of lost sight of WHY they are out there. I’ve often seen them just sitting there on the side of the road raising and lowering that device onto trees that are 5 or 6″ in diameter just grinding them away into a scraggly mess. If your first linked video were taken in my town, our road crew would keep working on those trees until they eliminated them. Even if it took all day. 😉
Just my opinion of course.
Jeff, Herder is the name of the Dutch manufacturer (and the brand name).
Their website (in English): https://herder.nl/en
Yes, I kind of figured that out once I re-watched the video.
I guess I’ll have to go back to calling it “that infernal tree grinding up machine.” 🙂
I have an open culvert running past my place. We don’t get enough water flow to need one of these (dry most of the year), but it’s amazing to see what that herder can do. That’s quite some load it looks to be taking out. Very nice mower too.
Ditches come in different categories (‘ranks’) and discharge water (when too wet) but can also return water (when dry) through an elaborate system of small and big sluice gates.
Mowing them starts at the end of the summer and normally ends in November. The job is also called ‘sweeping ditches’ and is legally required, as mentioned.
Over here we would call that type of mower a “flail” type chopper. They were marketed in the late 50s with a chute over them as a cheap and effective way to chop alfalfa and blow it into a wagon for fodder. The cutting blades on the end of a chain are very forgiving when you encounter a hidden rock.
Yes, it’s a flail mower alright.
Tractor mounted boom mowers are pretty common in the US along with an occasional Unimog but I’ve never seen a mower head on an excavator. Then again wheeled excavators are a rarity. One useful add on is a pressurized cab to keep out dust, pollen etc., I knew a guy whose day job was mowing around NYC reservoirs and he claimed he could drive his rotary flail through a patch of ragweed without sneezing
Wheeled excavators are widely used here, allowed to drive on public roads (except on freeways, of course). They can’t pick up much speed, to put it mildly. In that regard, modern farm tractors (also a common sight on our roads) do much better.