Busy baling hay and silage in the mid-July sunshine, we caught up with Moloney Agri and Tree Care, a family-run contracting business in Clogheen, Co Tipperary.

With over 50 years’ experience in hedge cutting and general contracting under its belt, the firm is headed up by Jim Moloney and his son Thomas.

The business is an agricultural contracting and tree care company. The services provided include saw and flail hedge-cutting using both tractors and excavators, round baling and wrapping, square baling, fertiliser spreading using GPS guidance and slurry spreading.

An 18t JCB excavator is rigged out with either a heavy-duty tree shears which the Maloneys sourced from Austria or an heavy duty Seppi mulcher head.

Hedge-cutting

On the tree care side of the business, the Moloney family carries out work for a huge portfolio of customers, ranging from the small farmer right up to large semi-state companies.

Originally, Jim started out in 1967 with a Ford Super Dexta and a Fisher Humpfries saw-type hedge-cutter.

Roll the clock forward to the present day and the team runs four McConnel flail hedge-cutters and three Moffet Bushmaster saws.

When the going gets tough, the team brings in the big gun in the form of an 18t JCB excavator rigged out with a heavy-duty tree shears, which the Moloneys sourced from Austria.

Meanwhile, a heavy duty Seppi mulcher head is also used on the excavator, depending on the job in hand.

The firm runs three Moffet Bushmaster saws.

The four McConnel hedge cutters (8085 teleVFR, 6585 teleVFR and two 6500Ts) are rigged out with a selection of 1.2m- to 1.6m-wide cutting heads. Thomas noted that the head is the heart of the machine and that they own more heads than actual machines.

A selection of standard T and the heavier-duty F14 flails on tough-cut rotors are always on hand depending on the job in question.

He added that the newer tractors tend to have the cabs positioned further forward and thus are coupled with the variable forward reach (VFR) machines.

McConnel has always been the hedge cutter of choice, according to Thomas, who notes he’s a fan of the reliability they offer and the resale value they bring to the table.

In a similar fashion, Thomas commended the strong build quality of the Monaghan-built Moffet machines.

Today, approximately 50% of the tree care work is done on behalf of farmers, while the remainder is carried out for semi-State bodies.

Alongside heavy machinery, the Moloneys cover all aspects of tree care, including offering chainsaw operators alongside a selection of cherry pickers and wood chipping equipment.

McConnel has always been the hedge cutter of choice according to Thomas who notes he’s a fan of the reliability they offer and the resale value they offer.

Tractors

Jim Moloney started off his contracting career with a Ford Super Dexta and has stayed loyal to the brand ever since. Today, the fleet is made up of 13 New Holland tractors. These include 40 Series, TS, TSA, TM, T6 and T7..

Thomas noted that 11 of the tractors were purchased new, while the majority of maintenance and repairs are carried out in-house, with the exception of when things are very busy.

“New Holland tractors have been good to us over the years. We think the manufacturer has got the fundamental components of the tractors right, which means they are reliable and have a good resale value.

“We buy both new and secondhand tractors, depending on what the tractor will be required to do. We don’t have any particular policy when it comes to replacing or upgrading tractors.

“However, we are starting to keep tractors longer. We find that some of the older tractors are proving to be more reliable and actually more efficient.

“The newer tractors are quite complex and have doubled in price in the past 15 years.

“Our highest-hour tractor is a 2000 New Holland TS115 which we bought new and has since clocked up 18,500 hours.

“With 135hp on the shaft, this tractor was fitted with a turbo and air conditioning and was a top-spec machine in its day.

“We originally used it for mowing and baling in the early days, but now is solely used for hedge-cutting. It has been a great tractor and in recent years is refined to just one driver.

“We have certain tractors for various tasks and try to mostly keep the same driver to one tractor when possible,” explained Thomas.

Some of the tractors in the Moloney fleet have been modified with special railway equipment to accommodate tree work for Irish Rail.

The tractors in question are fitted with a rail bogey, similar to what you might see under a train.

This allows the tractor to travel on the rail tracks to keep the hedges cut for the safe passage of trains.

Thomas explained that this specialised work is generally only carried out at nighttime when the trains aren’t running.

It’s not all plain sailing with this kind of work, with significant driver training, sky-high insurance costs and the requirement of machines to be independently certified by a company in England.

Thomas noted that the tractors coupled to the firm’s three Moffet Bushmaster saws are generally never taken off, as this process would take at least a day and a half per tractor.

Thomas commended the strong build quality of the Monaghan-built Moffet machines.

Bales

The Moloney family also covers quite a bit of ground on the baling front. The team runs two round Lely balers, comprising of a Tornado combination baler-wrapper unit (RPC 245) and a standalone Lely Welger 245 baler.

This single baler is operated as part of an inline system, coupled with a HS2000 McHale wrapper.

Thomas was quick to point out that the HS2000 is probably the best machine that the family ever invested in.

He explained: “Since we bought the HS2000 new, it has clocked up over 160,000 bales and has been absolutely bulletproof.

“It is fitted with a steering axle, meaning you’d get the outfit in anywhere. It has been coupled to four single balers over the years. We were always a fan of the inline system, as it offered much less machine depreciation in comparison to a combination baler-wrapper unit.”