Sugar Beet Haulm Toppers/Farming Simulator 17
A Sugar Beet Haulm Topper is a type of Implement in Farming Simulator 17. Its purpose is to remove the green leaves off ripe Sugar Beets - a necessary step before harvesting this crop.
Description
Farming Simulator 17 offers only one model of Sugar Beet Haulm Topper - the Tractor-mounted Grimme FT 300. This model is designed to be mounted on the front of a Tractor, while a Grimme Rootster 604 Sugar Beet Harvester Trailer is attached to the back and actually collects the sugar beets from the ground. Together, the two tools perform both beet harvesting tasks simultaneously. Nevertheless, you can use each tool separately for the same end result.
Sugar Beet Haulm Toppers 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 Haulm Toppers.
List of Sugar Beet Haulm Toppers
Farming Simulator 17 offers only one model of Sugar Beet Haulm Topper. It is a Tractor-mounted implement, 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 FT 300 | 17,000 | 20 | 2.9 | 15 | 34 |
Haulm Topping
- Main article: Sugar Beet (Farming Simulator 17)
Before any Sugar Beets can be harvested, their leafy green tops must be cut off. You can do this with a very expensive Sugar Beet Combine Harvester (which will also immediately collect the beets themselves), or use a Sugar Beet Haulm Topper to do the cutting separately.
Haulms can only be cut once the beet field is ripe. You cannot cut the haulms while the Sugar Beets are still growing.
Note that a Sugar Beet Haulm Topper does not create any material whatsoever. Its only purpose is to prepare the field for the actual beet harvest.
Remember that putting the Haulm Topper on the front of a Tractor allows you to put a Sugar Beet Harvester Trailer at the back - performing the harvest immediately after cutting the haulms.
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.