High speed drilling and cultivation puts a halt to soaring establishment costs

Having tried minimum tillage on his farm ten years ago without success, Gordon Sanderson, who farms near Middlesborough on Teeside might have been forgiven for thinking that lowering establishment costs through reduced cultivations was always going to be hard to achieve. However, last autumn, with the arrival of a disc-based drilling system, spiralling fuel costs have been halted, while at the same time, work rates are being improved.

Cropping on the 350-acre Grange Farm, near Great Broughton includes winter wheat, winter barley and oilseed rape grown on heavy, undulating land. Grass is grown on 100 acres supporting 55 head of suckler cows.

According to Mr Sanderson, for the very first time, a power harrow will not be playing a part in the farm’s autumn cultivations later this season. “We’ve always had a plough-based system – it suits things here,” he says. “But, for this autumn, instead of going over it first with a power harrow, we’ll be going straight on the plough with a new set of rolls followed by one pass with our cultivator drill system on the back.”

Mr Sanderson took delivery of a 3m Väderstad Carrier Drill last September and it went straight into drilling the autumn cereals. All the land was ploughed and then power harrowed ahead of the drill.

Väderstad’s Carrier Drill performs as two machines in one. Two rows of conical discs ensure intensive cultivation and mixing of the top 10cm of soil. With disc diameter at only 430mm – high rotation speeds are achieved while the seed is drilled in bands behind the discs, covered and firmed by packer rollers at the rear.

Mr Sanderson reckons that the Carrier Drill was drilling at speeds of 20km/hr last autumn, literally doubling the drilling speed over the previous regime. “The old system might have managed 20 to 25 acres a day while the Carrier Drill has doubled that.”

He’s also been impressed with the accuracy of seed placement achieved at such high speeds. “At 20km/hr the seed is literally sprinkled into the soil and our establishment in the autumn was pretty much 100 per cent,” claims Mr Sanderson. “Our agronomist has been very impressed.

“Our old system of plough, roll, power harrow and drill would just be too expensive and slow to operate these days – the price of fuel has shot up so we had to find an alternative way to keep the costs down.”

Costs may be coming down still further this autumn, believes Mr Sanderson, who is set to try the Carrier Drill straight on the plough with only a set of discs to help, mounted on the front of the 195hp tractor.

Neville Kirby of Russells, based in Northallerton, who sold Mr Sanderson the Carrier drill, says that growers in the area want this type of drill, particularly because of the speed of operation.

“Growers are always wanting larger drills but people are interested in these disc drills because they can get their land ready and, when it’s time to drill, they can do so at speed and get the job done when they need to.”

“We’ve been selling Väderstad drills for 2-3 years now so this system of fast drilling at a shallow depth is still relatively new tomus. Its high speed performance and the low cost of operation.

Contact Russells on:
Malton - 01653 698000
Boroughbridge - 01423 324848
Northallerton - 01609 771727
Eggborough - 01977 663353
www.russells.uk.com