Dunstan Farmers Engineering has launched a new range of mother bins designed to carry up to 150 tonnes allowing farmers to harvest more efficiently.
The bins, manufactured at Dunstan’s Kerang plant in northern Victoria, are the result of customer demand for larger storage.
Dunstan Farmers Engineering managing director, Craig Miller, said the mother bins were equipped with a 40 centimetre computer balanced auger allowing grain to be unloaded at seven to eight tonnes per minute.
“The speed of unload is important to farmers,” he said.
“These farmers are running multiple headers, sometimes multiple chaser bins.
“A big mother bin like a 130 or a 150 tonne is really that intermediary or buffer storage between the headers, the chaser bins and the trucks on the other side,” Mr Miller said.
“If they’ve got two or three headers they can fill these very quickly and it just helps that whole logistical flow with the movement of grain throughout their harvest process.”
The new bins also have a hydraulically operated steel roof designed to last longer than a tarp, and is safer and quick and easy to operate.
Mr Miller said an optional rear steering system on the larger mother bins would assist farmers through narrow laneways and gates.
“The rear steering is an absolute winner and it just makes moving them significantly easier,” he said.
“There is no scuffing of the wheels across the paddock, because they all turn.”
Ten steering axles, with five at the front and five at the rear, bring the turning radius down to 20 metres on the outside of the bin and 11m on the inside, allowing the 18 metre bins to move through a range of different situations.
Other features as standard include LED work lights, indicator lights, flashing lights, oversize signage, fire extinguisher, parking jack, inspection windows and a rear access manhole.
“We really don’t want people climbing over the top and falling so the rear access manhole is a great safety feature,” he said.
“One of the other features that we have is the option of internal flow control shutters, or as some people refer to them as, cut-offs.
“On the big bins they’re standard so there is a front half of the bin and there is a rear half and you can control the flow of grain hydraulically by opening and closing the shutters.”
The new mother bins is the latest innovation from a company which has been a major part of the broadacre industry in Australia for more than 50 years.
“It is a trusted brand, very well-known and very well regarded,” Mr Miller said.
“One of the pleasing things is that we have high repeat sales, customers who have had the product for a long time or their parents, their father, have had it in the preceding generation and they’ve come back and bought again.
“We have a very loyal customer base and high repeat sales.
“Mother bins and chaser bins are our core product and we manufacture a range of sizes through both of those lines,” Mr Miller said.
“There are a lot of brands in the market and there is a lot of competition, [but] our product is first class,” he said.
“I had a gentleman ring me the other day enquiring about the possibility of second-hand bin and he couldn’t find one.”
“The reason for that is if one is available from a farmer then normally the farmer on the adjoining property will buy it and that is a testament to the brand, it is a testament to the quality and the longevity of the product.”
