Front-mounted tool carrier
The front-mounted tool carrier is an essential piece of equipment in viticulture, linking the tractor to various tools for tasks such as pre-pruning, trimming and leaf removal. It improves the driver's visibility, although the length of the assembly makes manoeuvring more difficult. Several models are available, including mast-mounted and chassis-mounted tool carriers, each offering specific advantages in terms of compactness and rigidity.
Work objective
The front-mounted tool carrier provides a connection between the tractor and the tool for pre-pruning, trimming, leaf removal and much more.
A large number of manufacturers offer front-mounted tool carriers to make grape harvesting machines more versatile, for example, but they can also be used to attach implements to the front of tractors that are not equipped with a front linkage.
Front-mounting significantly improves visibility for the driver, but extends the length of the tractor-implement assembly, making manoeuvring at the end of rows more complicated.
Tractor-mounted front-mounted tool carrier
There are mast-mounted tool carriers for straddling the row and chassis-mounted tool carriers for working the soil.
Front-mounted mast tool carrier
The mast
The mast is made of steel, generally a single beam. It is mainly attached to the weight carrier of the inter-row tractor. Some manufacturers offer a single-beam tool carrier mounted on a parallelogram. The tool can then be moved in front of the tractor, thereby limiting the space required for road travel.Between-wheel attachments have become rarer in recent years because, on some tractors, adaptation is limited by the location of the particle filter.