Sugar Beet Harvester Trailers/Farming Simulator 17
A Sugar Beet Harvester Trailer is a type of Implement in Farming Simulator 17. This tool collects Sugar Beets from the field, like a Harvesting Header does for other crops. Unlike other crops, before the Harvester Trailer can collect the Beets they must first be processed by a Sugar Beet Haulm Topper.
Farming Simulator 17 offers only one model of Sugar Beet Harvester Trailer - the Grimme Rootster 604. This model can be towed by most vehicles, but it is designed to be attached to the back of a Tractor, while a Grimme FT 300 Sugar Beet Haulm Topper is attached to the front and prepares the crop for collection. Together, the two tools perform both beet harvesting tasks simultaneously. Nevertheless, you can use each tool separately for the same end result.
Sugar Beet Harvester Trailers are in direct competition with Sugar Beet Combine Harvesters - self-propelled machines that can cut the haulms and collect the beets in a single go. However, such machines are incredibly expensive compared to Sugar Beet Harvester Trailers.
List of Sugar Beet Harvester Trailers
Farming Simulator 17 offers only one model of Sugar Beet Harvester Trailer. It can be found in the "Beet Harvesting" category at the store.
| Name | Price | Maint. Cost per Day |
Working Width (m) |
Max. Work Speed (km/h) |
Power Consumption (hp) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grimme Rootster 604 | 88,000 | 90 | 2.9 | 10 | 54 |
Harvesting Sugar Beets
- Main article: Sugar Beet (Farming Simulator 17)
A Sugar Beet Harvester Trailer is designed to harvest Sugar Beets from the field. Unlike most other crops, the process of harvesting Beets is a two-step process, preparing the field and then collecting the beets. Furthermore, the Sugar Beet Harvester Trailer itself is operated a little differently than a normal Harvester.
Haulm Topping
- Main article: Sugar Beet Haulm Toppers (Farming Simulator 17)
Before any Sugar Beets can be harvested, their leafy green tops - the 'haulms' - must first be cut off. You can do this with a very expensive Sugar Beet Combine Harvester (which will also immediately harvest the beets themselves), or use a Sugar Beet Haulm Topper to do the cutting separately. A Sugar Beet Harvester Trailer will simply not interact with any beets until their haulms have been removed.
Note that you can attach both a Sugar Beet Harvester Trailer and a Sugar Beet Haulm Topper to the same Tractor, and do the entire work in a single pass. This speeds up the harvest significantly, compared to making a separate pass with each machine.
Operating the Harvester Trailer
The Sugar Beet Harvester Trailer itself is not a self-propelled machine like most other Harvesters. Instead it must be towed behind a vehicle that can provide it with power, most likely a Tractor. When active, the Harvester Trailer will collect any haulmed beets its head touches.
As it harvests, the Sugar Beet Harvester Trailer will collect the beets into a holding tank inside the machine, just like a normal Harvester. The machine will stop collecting beets once the tank is full. To make room, the Harvester Trailer must extend its offloading pipe, and transfer the beets into another container (a Tipper, Loading Wagon, etc.).
Alternatively, you can manually order the Harvester Trailer to dump the beets anywhere you want, creating a Pile which you could pick up later. The game features a special machine (the Holmer Exxact Terra Felis 2 eco) designed specifically to pick up massive quantities of Sugar Beets after the harvest is completed. This method can make Sugar Beet harvests go significantly faster, but requires a bit of extra work.
Comparison with Sugar Beet Combine Harvesters
Sugar Beet Haulm Toppers and Sugar Beet Harvester Trailers are separate tools, each performing only one half of the beet harvest. When mounted together on the same Tractor, they can perform the job in a single pass.
This puts them in direct competition with another type of tool - a Sugar Beet Combine Harvester - which can perform both actions simultaneously, harvesting beets in a single pass with just one machine.
Each of these two different setups has its own advantages and disadvantages:
- A Topper/Trailer setup is much cheaper. The combined price of the Topper and Trailer models available in the base game is $105,000, not including the price of a Tractor strong enough to use them both at the same time (assuming you don't already own one). Compare this to the $573,000 price of a Combine Harvester and its Header.
- A Topper/Trailer has much lower maintenance. Both tools together cost only $110 per day, compared to $1,860 for a Combine Harvester + Header. This doesn't include the maintenance of the tractor, but then a tractor can be used for many other jobs while waiting for the next Sugar Beet harvest. A Combine Harvester can waste a whole lot of money if it just sits around waiting for you to need its use again.
- A Combine Harvester has a wider collection head. The working heads of the Grimme FT 300 Topper and Grimme Rootster 604 Trailer both have a width of 3.0 meters, compared to 4.0 meters on the Holmer Exxact HR 9 (the only available Beet Harvesting Header in the game). This allows the Combine Harvester to complete the same harvest 33% faster.
- A Combine Harvester works faster. The Holmer Exxact HR 9 harvesting header imposes a maximum working speed of 12 km/h / 7 mph, which is 20% faster than the working speed of a Grimme Rootster 604 harvester trailer. Again, this allows it to complete the same harvest faster.
- A Combine Harvester has greater capacity. It can collect 7.5 times (!) as many Sugar Beets as a Topper/Trailer before it needs to be emptied. This can make the harvest go a lot faster.
- A Combine Harvester is easier to control. It is a single solid machine, with a single header at the front that does both jobs simultaneously. This makes it easier to put the header exactly where you need it. A Topper/Trailer, on the other hand, has one of its headers at the back, behind the tractor - making it harder to put that header in the right place. Furthermore, the Holmer Exxact Terra Dos T4-40 harvester has special steering controls for extra precision.
Overall, the Price and Maintenance Cost differences are probably the most important factors in the early game, when money is short and you do not yet have many Sugar Beet fields to process. This prevents you from needlessly spending massive amounts of money for a Combine Harvester to just sit and wait for the crops to ripen. With the relatively-small investment of $105,000, you can start harvesting Sugar Beets early on - a profitable venture.
Once you can afford the Combine Harvester however, it will make the harvest go much faster, and with virtually no downsides other than the massive maintenance cost.