Maintaining broad acre landscapes in Australia’s demanding conditions is no small feat. For Shannon Edwards of Enviro Culture Services, the Major Cyclone Rotary Mower is his choice machine for tackling young jungles as well as keeping grounds tidy all year.
“We specialise in broad acre landscaping and maintenance. Our mowing services range from high-profile mowing sites to slashing grass to slashing bramble and woody weeds,” Shannon begins. “A client expects a good finish in a timely manner. Most of our clients have small timeframes – they usually need a job done in a very short period of time – and we get very little notice. We have little time to get across a ground. With climate conditions in Australia as well – we’re dealing with total fire ban days – so when we’re trying to slash tall grass we need to be in and out quickly. The machine needs to be efficient and have minimal breakdown periods.”
“Stephen Miller from Fieldquip said maybe the Major Cyclone is worth a look,” Shannon continued. “I saw the Cyclone cutting very similar vegetation in other places of the world and doing a fantastic result. And I had a look at how the Cyclone was built and how they got their strength with such a minimal amount of steel in comparison to what we had been purchasing and using in Australia.”
The award-winning Major Cyclone is designed to do the work of a flail mower while requiring only a fraction of the power and fuel a similar sized flail would consume. “Once we received the first machine we put it straight to work. We were very happy with the result and found that the weight and speed that we can cut across the ground and get such a fantastic finish meant we no longer needed flail mowers nor do we need large wing mowers. We were able to get away with the three point linkage mowers and reduce our cost and reduce our weight across the ground.”
“I ordered four more off the back of that one,” beamed Shannon.
The robust and rugged design of the Cyclone Mower easily copes with the toughest of conditions. “We’re often in rough, undulating terrain. The fact that the mower has a very short width means that it follows contours well. It has a full length roller with tapered roller bearings within the roller – like stub axles in it – which is a unique design,” explained Shannon. “I was a bit fearful of how many tapered roller bearings we would consume in rocky terrain and rough going but we haven’t had a failure yet.”
Minimising disruptions and delivering a polished look is important for busy maintenance crews. “We’ve been operating the Cyclone for two full seasons and we’re very happy with it,” enthused Shannon. “The full length roller means we’re scalping a lot less and hitting less rock. We’ve also got less potential for spark. And we get longer blade life so it’s really a win-win.”
Moving efficiently and safely from one job to the next is another important factor for Shannon: “With our challenging conditions in Australia we found that the Cyclone mower can transport readily even at short length and we get to site quickly. So on days of total fire ban we’re not having to drag big long wing mowers to cover the same width as what we could cover with the Cyclone. Also, we’re not using the size tractor that we need to pull the wing mower so we can reduce the horsepower required. We can fit two tractors on the one semi-trailer as opposed to one tractor so it doubles our performance on any given day.”
The shaft driven design of the Cyclone rotary mower means minimal hassles with belts, often the weakest part of a mower. “The incline gear boxes haven’t given us any trouble. They’ve got cushdrives between the gearboxes themselves. So all in all the Cyclone is a really well-designed machine and functions really well.”
“We’ve had a lot of different machines from single rotor to multi-rotor gearbox machines, wing designs, offset designs and flail designs. We’ve virtually tried most of the market out in different configurations of mowers and are happy to settle on Cyclones.”
Bottom line: “This is the ideal contracting machine.”