The application of slurry and solid fertilizer is often done under great time pressure, just when the weather is right and the plants can absorb the nutrients. At Skyggebjerg Maskinstation near Fredericia, slurry capacity is optimized to the limit.

In 2020, the slurry season was quite hectic at Søren Ladegaard Sørensen, Skyggebjerg Maskinstation near Fredericia. In a good way.

- As everyone knows, the winter of 2019/2020 was unusually rainy and therefore it wasn't possible to start spreading slurry on a large scale from February 1, when the fields were still very wet and waterlogged. But then we had an unusually good period in March and April, where there was actually not much rain. Here we were able to work around the clock and therefore caught up with the ones we missed in February," explains the machine shop owner.

- My people drove in two shifts with a short overlap between two pilots so they could just hand over how far they had come. This actually means that I have to pay 26 hours of wages per day to employees for 24 hours of invoicing to customers," says the top-optimized machine shop.

Running almost non-stop

For two months, Søren Ladegaard Sørensen worked virtually around the clock 24-7 and tested the capacity to reach a staggering 500 hours of driving in 21 days.

In the spring of 2020, Søren Ladegaard Sørensen's employees managed to drive 500 effective hours in 21 days with this three-axle SAMSON PG 25 with a 30 meter boom.

- I know this because the tractor we have in front of the slurry tanker has 500-hour engine oil change intervals, and we had to stop for a short while to do that. The slurry tanker does not require daily lubrication other than the pto axle, which is lubricated every time we change drivers, says Søren Ladegaard Sørensen.

One morning this spring, however, the truck had to take a little break.

- My guys, who always take a walk around and inspect the gear when they change it, discovered a small crack in the hose boom.

- I immediately contacted Samson Agrolize in Viborg, who asked me to take a picture with my cell phone of the incipient fracture. Two hours later, a service truck pulled up with a set of welding torches and another two hours later we could continue.

- It looks like new! Here it was, Samson Agrolize installers repaired an incipient crack in Skyggebjerg Machine Station's 30 meter snake boom in no time and under warranty, Søren Ladegaard Sørensen shows. (See image at the bottom of the page)

Three-year warranty

- In my situation, where I only have the one slurry truck and some very loyal customers, it's crucial for me that they get the slurry delivered on time. And here I got a lesson in how valuable it is to have specialized back-up in the form of the super skilled installers at Samson Agrolize who can solve a problem insanely fast.

When Søren Ladegaard Sørensen subsequently learned that the damage was repaired as a warranty repair, he was extra happy.

- I bought the trailer and boom as lightly used. Both are from 2017 and I took over for the 2018 season. I called Samson Agrolize and praised their service and the skilled technicians who can respond so quickly and solve a problem so safely in record time and even within the 36-month warranty scheme. It is very valuable for me to have such a service organization behind me," he says.

A lot of road transport

At Skyggebjerg Maskinstation, which generates 80 percent of its turnover from agricultural work and the rest from winter services and roadside maintenance, Søren Ladegaard also has a self-propelled slurry spreader and two SAMSON SP 22 solid manure spreaders.

- The self-propelled slurry spreader naturally takes care of the largest areas where slurry has to be delivered by truck anyway. Therefore, the three-axle SAMSON PG 25 with its 30-meter boom or a black soil precipitator has to cope with a relatively large amount of slurry transport by road for customers who do not use the slurry spreader. Typically, much of the slurry that the SAMSON truck has to handle is transported up to five kilometers, explains Søren Ladegaad Sørensen.

Skyggebjerg Maskinstation currently employs eight permanent employees and performs tasks in eastern Jutland from Haderslev in the south to Horsens in the north and to some extent on Funen.