Massey Ferguson MF 6465 [120hp]

The last time we spoke to Mr Pople about his Massey Ferguson 6465 the only problem he had to report was to do with the number of gears that had to be negotiated to get up to speed on the road.

A retro-fitted AutoDrive option has fixed that gremlin and it has found both favour and aversion with some of the drivers.

“Some of those who use the tractor cannot see the need for the AutoDrive option, but another driver reckons it’s nicer to drive than the MF Dyna-6 box,” he says.

Previously, the machine had racked up just over 600 hours, but a busy harvest season has seen that figure doubled to 1200 hours now.

“We mowed about 202ha (500 acres) of grass and ploughed about 36ha (90 acres) of land,” adds Mr Pople.

Apart from that the machine has been busy hauling grain all harvest, a task that will also keep the tractor busy when the maize harvest kicks off shortly.

“We are pretty quiet in terms of workload at the minute, but the maize harvest will keep us occupied and then we’ll be into heavier cultivations,” he says.

The farm goes straight into the maize land after the harvester with a 3m power harrow and then broadcasts grass seed.

As far as faults go with the machine Mr Pople reports that he hasn’t seen or had to speak to the dealer in months, which can only be a good thing.

He does concede that the tractor is due a service now and says that with nothing to affect the warranty there is little reason that the farm couldn’t do the work themselves.

The tractor has been monitored on fuel usage and returned about 6.9gal/hr (26 litres/hr) coupled to a 3m power harrow, while lighter operations such as fertiliser spreading has returned 1.9gal/hr (7.3 litres/hr).

“The power harrowing was measured when we were working in a fairly peat-based soil type, so the consumption figures could be higher on harsher land,” he adds.