Australian Cane Farming

[scar_au]

Hi there,

Just wondering if any keen modders have looked at implementing an Australian style (Either northern QLD or even NSW based) cane farming map?

Having grown up around cane farms in far north queensland, I'd love to see Australian style machinery, and possibly even farm setups. I'm not really a modder myself.. but if cane trains could somehow be implemented too that would be freaking amazing.

I am fairly competent with CAD/solid modelling, whether it be Rhinoceros, Inventor, AutoCAD (& learning solidworks currently). So willing to help anyone out where I can if someone was keen to do something.

Have attached a few pics below


Harvesting [similar to current plat edition, with some differences to what we refer to as the "Bin Hauler" (tractor and trailer)]


Articulated version of the bin hauler


Harvesting usually uses 2 (sometimes 3) "chaser" bin haulers. This allows the harvesting to be as continuous as possible. The bins are only small as they're emptied into "cane train bins" that are located typically close by (within 1-3 km)


Bin hauler unloading into cane train bins. Basically the bin is articulated to tilt forwards, where it feeds onto a conveyer belt that can be used on either the left or right hand side of the bin/trailer.


A bin hauler directly refilling a planter.


Cane trains are usually towed with one or two smaller locomotives (in some instances one large one) to a Sugar Mill for processing.


Your typical cane farm in Far North Queensland.



Cheers,

[scar_au]

Additionally.. I did just find these small chaser bins in the official mods. Pretty similar concept to the conveyor-style-bins that I'm after.

https://www.farming-simulator.com/mod.p ... tle=fs2017

[scar_au]

No one interested in this?

[BostonJohnny1226]

I would be.....beautiful scenery.

[garyst]

Nice pictures! A lot of sugarcane grown in my area here in central Louisiana USA. Notice a couple differences from in your pics of how cane if farmed over there compared to over here. In Louisiana all sugarcane is planted on raised bedded rows. No one uses trains to hall cane over here but semis instead, usually around 8 or so per harvester, and about 6 tractors with wagons per harvester too. If no trucks are available while the harvesters are still cutting cane they will just dump it in large piles on the ground until later they will use an excavator to pick it up and fill the semis. Also the tillage equipment for preparing fields are 3pt. Mounted and either do 3 or 5 rows, but all the planters are pull type.

[scar_au]

Nice pictures! A lot of sugarcane grown in my area here in central Louisiana USA. Notice a couple differences from in your pics of how cane if farmed over there compared to over here. In Louisiana all sugarcane is planted on raised bedded rows. No one uses trains to hall cane over here but semis instead, usually around 8 or so per harvester, and about 6 tractors with wagons per harvester too. If no trucks are available while the harvesters are still cutting cane they will just dump it in large piles on the ground until later they will use an excavator to pick it up and fill the semis. Also the tillage equipment for preparing fields are 3pt. Mounted and either do 3 or 5 rows, but all the planters are pull type.

That's interesting to hear another way that it's done! Some of the farms that are further away from the "loco lines" sometimes use semi's as well (even though the rail network for cane trains is generally pretty vast in the area).

Most of the farms over here are usually in very wet areas (wettest town in Australia located near where a lot of the the above photos were taken). Most of the fields are fairly tightly packed, and don't allow a lot of room for semis to get around the headlands. When it gets a bit muddy you can imagine the other logistical problems they have! The smaller tractor-pulled bins are the typical solution to limited turning room at the end of each row.

[garyst]

They don't leave much of a turn row over here too, only about 20 feet or so, but they will pass a scraper to level it off before harvesting starts. They also usually will have an area for each field that they will use to load the trucks and will either have sand, gravel, or concrete slab on that lot for the trucks not to get stuck and to dump the cane on. We get alot of rain over here too but farmers don't stop harvesting no matter how flooded the fields get. A lot of the tractors have push bar bumpers on the front like in one of your pics to help get out other stuck equipment, and they will have more aggressive grip tires on the tractors people call them rice and cane tires over here.