The Hristofis family have been olive growers and contractors for many years in South Australia. Developing their service to a professional level has taken years of experience and perseverance.
One of the services that the Hristofis’ owned Samrea Olive Contracting offers is tree pruning or grove redevelopment. In many cases, groves have been planted and left to grow. The amount of work and skill required to bring an olive grove to a productive level is enormous. Training, pruning and fertilising is a continuous task and takes years of work before substantial returns are seen. If trees are left too long, the reworking process on the grove is enormous.
Samrea Olive contracting recently had a job on an olive grove that required a large amount of reworking. This particular grove was 6 years old and not previously shaped. The overall growth of the trees was very rough. This situation was ideal for the Selion chain saw as it was developed to service the olive growing industry globally, although it can, of course, be used in many other applications.
Mr Hristofis was the sole user of the chainsaw during the pruning operation. Following their normal practice, they had a further four staff following Hristofis with the chainsaw, whose primary role was to clear the branches he had cut from the trees and finish any small suckers or branches he had missed with small saws or secateurs.
Four back up employees are normally enough to keep up with a petrol powered chainsaw, but because of the efficiency of the Selion and the lack of ‘down time’, six people were required to keep up with Hristofis.
Hristofis reported on the following benefits of using the Selion chainsaw over a two week period:
• Two days from one charge of the lithium 600 battery
• First day: 55-70 % remaining capacity normally
• 30 – 40% remaining after day two
Hristofis only managed to flatten the battery once during the testing period, but this was after two consecutive 9.5 hour working days. With the Selion, Hristofis was able to average 380-450 trees per day utilising a total of 7 persons, as opposed to 200 – 250 trees per day with the petrol powered units and 5 people. This represents an increase in efficiency of 30-35%.
Hristofis commented that the extension petrol chainsaw is not as manoeuvrable as the Selion, due to its weight and fixed length. The standard petrol chainsaw was also cumbersome and had limited reach. He further noted that he had to fuel up regularly and replace oil in the chainsaws every second tank of petrol.
The high-quality ¼” blade only required sharpening every second day effectively, but Hristofis admitted that if he had spent a little more time caring for the blade, it may have worked even more efficiently.
‘Oil usage is unbelievable’ Hristofis stated – once every week he filled the unit completely but checked the level regularly.
Normally every third day, he had to add some oil to the Selion. ‘The chain tensioning system was good’ he stated, noting that he rarely adjusted the blade and that the chain didn’t even get hot.
‘Sometimes the guard will jam up with thin twigs that are green, flexible and don’t cut well, but the cover is easy to take off and clean in the grove.’
Hristofis used both the telescopic and fixed models for the job, and his only complaint was that if the locking mechanism on the telescopic pole wasn’t tight enough, it would sometimes selfextend when cutting heavy branches. Normally he would have to carry in excess of 20 litres of fuel and 10 litres of oil each day to ensure continuous operation of the petrol driven version. With the Selion, only oil was necessary, making life much simpler for the operator.
The reduced weight and comfort of the Pellenc Selion was a huge bonus to performance. The heaviest part of the Selion is carried on a comfortable harness on the back. The petrol chainsaw had the entire weight in your arms all day!
The service offered by Hristofis is a very high level professional service. The speed at which he and his staff operate is far in excess of what the average grower would operate. The Selion chainsaw was the perfect partner for this professional team and allowed them to further improve the efficiency of their operation.
‘The quality of the Selion chainsaw was much higher than I originally thought,’ Hristofis said.
For olive growers, the Selion offers the added advantage of using the same battery as Pellenc’s Olivium olive rake, which offers excellent performance and operator comfort. Samrea Olive Contracting also use Pellenc’s Olivium olive rakes for their harvesting.
The technology Pellenc has created to create the Selion chainsaw, the Olivium olive rake and the Lixion secateurs has revolutionised the portable tool industry. For more information visit http://www.pellenc.com.au
