High-quality construction aggregate and a new site for a cattle shelter with rented Lokotrack crushers

Located in Savonlinna in eastern Finland, the Sydänmaa organic farm makes good use of Lokotrack crushers manufactured by Metso and rented from Rotarent. The captivating hills of South Savonia provide the backdrop to the work of levelling a rocky peak to create space for a new cattle shelter, feed storage and 100 head of Eastern Finncattle, a rare Finnish cattle breed.

“With help from Metso, we started producing respectable volumes of aggregate soon after we began. The process control system makes the various machines work well together, which helps us first-timers a lot,” says farmer Petri Temonen.

“Renting the equipment was by far the most cost-effective solution for us. I only need to pay rent for the months when I’m actually using the machines. If I’d bought them, I would still be making payments even when I’m not using the machines.”

“Crushing contractors are usually busy during the summer, so doing the work ourselves was the best alternative for us, as it meant that we had the site ready for construction early in the fall,” says Temonen.

A thousand metric tons a day

By the second week in their new role, the first-time crushing contractors were able to run a two-phase crushing plant and mobile screen like true craftsmen. Operating the machines from six in the morning until late in the evening, they generated up to 1,000 metric tons of aggregates per day.

Petri's sons Niko and Henri completed the three-man crushing team. All three of them only had previous experience of operating farming and forestry machinery, but that hasn’t prevented them from operating the machinery like pros.

The 0–600 mm blasted rock is first fed into the Lokotrack LT106 jaw crushing plant, from where it goes on to the LT200HP cone crushing plant, and finally through the ST3.8 mobile screen. The jaw setting is 85 mm and the cone setting 28 mm.

Petri Temonen estimates that they will be able to produce approximately 20,000 metric tons of aggregates from their own rock. Of this volume, 4,000 tons is 3–8 mm gravel to be used by the town of Savonlinna to grit the roads in the winter, as well as 0–16 mm gravel for road foundations. Gravel with no fine matter included was also produced in a closed circle.

Surprisingly low fuel consumption

Fuel economy is an important detail when renting machinery. Petri Temonen was surprised at the low consumption of the Lokotrack machines:

“The jaw crushing plant consumes 27 liters of fuel an hour, the cone crushing plant 25 liters, and the screen 10 liters. These are surprisingly low figures compared to excavators, for example.”

“Renting the machinery also means that we always get to use new machines and don’t need to spend time fixing them.”

A family farm since the 18th century

Petri Temonen runs a diversified business. In the village of Pihlajalahti near Savonlinna, he and his wife Ulla farm lands that have been in the family since the 1700s. Following the principles of organic animal husbandry, they are currently rearing some 200 head of Eastern Finncattle, which have their pasture on a picturesque hill rising to 500 meters above sea level.

Temonen also owns a forestry contracting company, Timber Agency Finland Oy, in operation since the 1990s. Wood harvesting has taken the company to Sweden and even to France, where a decade was spent clearing up after storms.

“Crushing operations seem to suit even an organic cattle farm surprisingly well. When we first started up the Lokotracks, the cattle stopped chewing the cud for all of two seconds,” Petri Temonen says.