Italian Crawlers

[Laapa]

I've heard Italy is the #1 market in Europe for Cat/Claas and JD crawlers. Somehow Italy don't strike me as a broadacre-farming place though. Far as they know they manufacture only relatively small tractors themselves.

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i had to do an essay on italy a short while ago. it seems to be quite hilly and they mostly use small crawlers. cant see them using bigger ones but. lamborghini and landini crawlers seem to be popular. check their websites. whats your view on landini. they are pretty nice looking. www.landini.co.za
www.lamborghinitractors.com

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Yes, that surprised me too. I know the area around Sienna (Tuscany?) looks almost exactly like the Palouse or the Northwest US with it's sand dune looking hills used for grain production. Such ground is most effectively farmed by crawlers (or wide 4x4's) and hillside combines. I'm surprised that that size of tractor is popular there. Of course pulling around those hills which are quite steep takes alot of horses. I don't know farm  size or how many contractors use them, but probably like other countries, bigger operators are now farming the land. It seemed they did some deep plowing on the low ground when I was there years ago. Some of those smaller crawlers were pulling only one heavy plow bottom pretty deep in what looked like hard soil. probably because of soil conditions and little or no deep frost. Maybe tracks are better for that operation. The Po River area which is a very flat and agriculturally bountiful area, may have drainage problems where crawlers are beneficial. It's also possible that in Italy like California and the NW US where crawler tractors have been used for generations, they are going to be likely by local custom or soil and topography conditions to use crawlers especially ones that can be driven down the road.

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Red Painter, you´re right. Siena belongs to Tuscany (La Toscana). That´s the most beautiful farming area I´ve had the opportunity to see. Very hilly. Conventional crawlers are very popular around that area. Landini, Same, Lamborghini and New Holland (previously Fiat) sell a lot of units around that area. It´s easier to see crawlers than wheeled tractors. I think one of the benefit of these small-medium powered crawlers is the center of gravity, very low which is important when working on hills. I also guess conventional or rubber tracks are a very good weight to transfer power to the ground.
It is not strange Laverda are one of the best sold hillside combines. Besides the Galileo cab is very related to hills. Not surprised after seeing Tuscany.

I do think Challenger models are very appreciated in the Po Valley, a very wet area and thus one of the first providers of rice in Europe.

I miss Italian people in this forum.

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European A, I would have liked to been there during harvest. My dad remembered seeing a dark green combine on a really steep hill when my folks toured Europe (probably an Arbos. I've seen pictures of them and I guess they are another extinct combine company). I remember seeing Laverdra's sitting by the road. I've seen pictures of their leveling combines on the New Holland site also.  I guess that some company sells levelers for mounting on combines there with 4-way leveling. IH used to use 4-way leveling in the US too before the axial flow. (I think it was invented by a machine shop owner in Moscow, Idaho for the 141 in about 1954. and it was a popular feature on their combines till 1977. If anyone is interested in hillside harvest see some of these sites:  www.hillcoweb.com/ for levelers put on US combines today or www.harvesting.com/combine/directory.htm and go to the John Deere site; then click on photographs and look at "sidehill combines in action"(showing the Holt combine which is the early Caterpillar combine before John Deere bought it), Jim Marples Hillside photos,and Combines near Spokane"  

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John Deere used to build hillside combines with 4-way levelling systems. I have a 90´s brochure with a JD 1177AL harvesting in Tuscany. Laverda still builds the 1740 AL 4-way leveling combine. Impressive machines.

I´ve never heard of Arbos. Where were they built? Another extinct combine company is IASA (wich stands for Industrias Albajar Sociedad Anónima). It was a Spanish independent manufacturer of combines until the 90´s. Quite simple machines .

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Yea, that Arbos was made in Italy. It was associated with White in North America (inventor of the MF rotary) someway. They were a dark green color with white wheels. One model had the motor behind the cab and kind of a saddle tank for grain and about a 1.12M cylinder I guess. The biggest model had  about a 1.5 meter wide cylinder drum and was sold for rice harvest in Australia also at one time. That machine looked a little like the present Laverda larger combines. They were a nice looking combine. I guess they're out of business.
Referring to my previous post, to be totally accurate, I'm not really sure who historically invented the four way leveling. I know International Harvester had a leveling shoe which was operated by counter weight when going up or down hills on pulled type combines back in the late 1930's to early 50's and had 4-way levelling about 1955 on selfpropelled combines.
I was aware of the IASA years ago when I saw it in a dealer magazine in a university library years ago. I was wondering what happened to the company. It was interesting to see pictures of it earlier. By the way, do you know what was that kind of hump on the back of the combine? Was it drive belt covering or some kind of straw rake?  I think it's too bad that so many companies are disappearing.
 I also think alot of companies have a model with the Italian autolevel or their own design for sale. I see NHolland has a Belgium made model in addition to the Laverda designed model, Deutz Fahr also had one or more,and probably Claas and others also. (I remember seeing an American built John Deere hillside combine in Italy, but that would have been earlier than the German built combine you mentioned). I think most European combines have some kind of levelling offered although some levellers are not for the extreme steep hills you see in Tuscany.
Interestingly, there is one combine which will work well on steep hills except when the upper wheels can't get enough traction because of no weight transfer on the upper wheels like happens with an autoleveler. That combine is the Agco Gleaner. It has accelerator rolls that accelerate the grain onto the sieves and can harvest on steep hills with no problem loosing grain over the sieves and of course with the cross ways rotor there are no walkers either. The combine is equipped with duals and sometimes ballast in the tires for traction. Not as comfortable to ride in as a hillside model I guess. The first time I saw one without an autoleveler, it looked like an insect (beetle) crawling over the hills.

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Red Painter,
If you let me know your email address I can send you some Iasa pictures still operating. I don´t know about the hump but I´ll try to find out.  

[Red_Painter]

European A
I sent you an E-mail if it worked. Thanks.

[Red_Painter]

Here's a related site. If you haven't seen it, take a look at the Gleaners especially the hillside machines and levelland rotary on the hillside which are kind of related to previous posts here. Check out this site and scroll down to hillside combines and click on thumbnails  to enlarge.  www.wheatfarm.com/comparo/

[European A]

Someone asked how popular tracked tractors were in Europe...that´s why I lived up this post.

There are some any others posts concerning Claas rubber tracked models in page 16,...(march, april)

[eppie]

Hey, Laapa, if you can hear us, please give us a sign of life !!
Havent heard of him for a long time now...

[Woodbeef]

hey Renze,

He's still around,or at least was a couple of weeks ago. He sent me an email. He's probably out putting some hours on that new Deere of his!!

[Bernhard]

Landini also built the Valpadane Rubber-Track. There was an Aera in Italy, where they use crawlers from Fiat in the Time before WW II to make it dry. (Emilia Romana I believe). There where a lot of Mosquitos and the People had been terrorized by them, so that Mussolini decided to do as I wrote.

Bernard, Derichsweiler, Germany