Potatoes
Potatoes are planted with a special planter, which can be found in the Potato growing technology tab: Gimme GL 420 or GL 860 Comacta. The first model is smaller and does not fertilize the field during planting. These planters are quite slow. You will fill them up traditionally: from the seed pallet purchased in the shop. You fill the next batch by pouring potatoes from the previous harvest into the planter.
Potatoes are harvested in one of two ways: use combine harvesters attached to the tractor: : Grimme SE 260 or ROPA Keiler 2. Avoid the first mentioned model! It also needs a front cover to work: Grimme KS 75-4. Because the width of the overlap – which is used to cut the protruding parts of the potato – is wider than the harvester, workers tend to avoid the potato stripes. The ROPA harvester does not need a front cover attachment.
Another option to harvest potatoes is to use a self-propelled combine harvester: Grimme Varitron 470 Platinum Terra Trac that can be found in the Vehicles section. The vehicle does not need to use the tractor to work and has twice the harvesting area and more than twice the speed (but the same storage capacity). If you are going to invest in potatoes, this is the best and obligatory item on the shopping list.
Sugar Beet
Sugar Beet is easier and cheaper to grow than potatoes, but the profits generated by it are also smaller. To plant beets it is enough to have any planter and a ploughed field.
To collect beets from the field, a cheaper option will be to buy the Grimme FT 300, which you attach to the front of the tractor, and the Grimme Rootster 604, which is attached to the rear. Compared to potato harvesters, this one has no disadvantages – it’s fast and reliable when it comes to its use by employees.
A self-propelled combine harvester, however, is comparatively more expensive, but also very efficient. In the Beet growing technology tab in the Vehicles section you will find as many as three models of combine harvesters: Ropa Panther 2,Tiger 6 XL and Holmer Terra Dos T4-40. They differ in the capacity and width of the headers. The headers can be found in the Beet growing technology in the following shop section: Tools. Each machine has a corresponding beet header. These combine harvesters work perfectly and reliably, and working with them is pure pleasure.
The additional machines you will find in the self-propelled harvester section are ROPA Maus 5 and Holmer Terra Felis 3. Don’t get confused – they are not for harvesting beets, but only for lifting them from the ground. In other words: you can store the beets in the field – instead of driving the tractor behind the combine harvester, pour the crop directly onto the field. Then you can collect the crop in a semi-trailer using this machine in no time at all. However, this is a tool that is only used for a few hectares of fields.
