News and Events

Evolution of a Rock Star

Frederick Hiam Limited is one of East Anglia’s largest growers of potatoes. Already operating a number of web based de-stoners, they recognised that a star based model would enable them to make an earlier start on their heavier soils.

CTM Root Crop Systems had recently launched their ‘Rock Star’ de-stoner which seemed to fit the bill so discussions got underway between farm manager Peter Pask and CTM’s Kevin Butcher. Peter was immediately impressed with the way Kevin and CTM design engineer Andrew Mountain were happy to take on board Peter’s requirements and suggestions.

“CTM were absolutely brilliant both with innovations and being ready to make design modifications, a nice change from manufacturers who say that’s what we make so that’s what you’re getting” says Peter. “The Rock Star is a driver’s machine. Because it works best when fully loaded you must increase your forward speed when working through light soils.”

This is a point confirmed by operator Graham Nicholas.“Rock Star is a very user friendly machine with minimum maintenance and good access” says Graham. “From the start Kevin and Andrew have given us everything we asked for and then some more post production”.

David Eley of Suffolk Agri Centre Ltd who supplied the machine has just sold his third Rock Star to a grower in East Suffolk. “They’re cost-effective, locally manufactured and backed by reliable service. We had already dealt with CTM over the years buying beet cleaner loaders and Expom cultivators .  Kevin has been a huge support to us.”

Kevin points out that growers are impressed with the Rock Star’s very competitive running costs. “Take our stars, because we own the exclusive rights to the design, we can offer replacements at around 50% of what some of our competitors do.

“The Rock Star leads with star rollers up front, this is where you want to remove most stones. The following webs sort the rest. It is interesting that some competitors who initially doubted our system have now adopted the same principles, having accepted that the CTM system works better than theirs did!”