Cutting the cost of cultivations

SINCE replacing a plough and power harrow/drill based system with a winged cultivator and a tine drill, Petersham Farms near Wimborne, Dorset has crushed establishment costs.

Drilling dates are now rarely missed, fuel use has been halved and labour and machinery costs have also tumbled across the 400-hectare (988-acre) farm, as owner James Ireland and full-time employee Mike Cross handle the bulk of the workload.

“We took the decision to overhaul our system five years ago and look for ways of reducing costs without sacrificing yields,” says Mr Ireland

 “We did have a weather-proof system with the plough and power harrow drill combination, but it was labour and equipment intensive, heavy on diesel and not very fast either.”

The switch to a more streamlined system was a result of Mr Ireland trying a neighbour’s Kverneland CLD tine cultivator.

“I put the machine through two different stubble fields, but chose to work down only half of each, allowing me to compare our existing system with that of the cultivator in the same fields,” he says.

“The resulting crop growth – which remained greener and stronger looking throughout winter – convinced me I needed to make some changes.

“So I bought a 3m ex-demo CLD cultivator at a cost of about £3,000 five years ago, and put the plough and power harrow in the back of the barn,” he says. “I couldn’t ask for lower costs.”

He also streamlined the farm’s tractor fleet, from three to one – replacing New Holland 7840, 8560 and TM135 tractors for a 155hp TM155.

“We didn’t need the kit or the horsepower,” he says, “and the residual values in our three tractors meant it also cost very little to put the TM155 on the farm.”

As a result, cultivation output is a comfortable 16ha (40 acre)/day, with fuel consumption pegged back at 7.5 litres/ha. Outputs of 20ha/day (49 acres) are possible and with the cultivator working at about 12-15cm deep, there’s more than enough soil movement and boiling action to incorporate stubbles and chopped straw residue.

Refinement of the cultivation process has resulted in a 30-year- old set of Parmiter disc harrows being pulled from the nettles.

“They’re cheap to run and allow us to make a preliminary pass to lightly disc the stubbles and create a stale seedbed ahead of the CLD,” he says. “The idea is to work smarter and with better timeliness rather than working an endless number of long days.”

Soil type

Soil type across the farm is a sandy clay loam over clay, which Mr Ireland says is wet through the winter and bone dry at almost any other time.

“Our soil is either like porridge or concrete – there’s very little in between – although we’ve no stones.” he adds. “The cultivator only gets through two sets of points in an entire season.”

Having addressed the front-end of the cultivation process, Mr Ireland’s attention then turned to the drill.

Previously reliant on a Kuhn 4m power harrow and Accord drill combination, he swapped the power harrow for a home-built tined cultivator to sit under the drill for the new regime.

“With the CLD responsible for soil movement, we didn’t need to keep the power harrow under the drill. It was just too slow,” he says.

“This turned out to be a reasonably successful system and proved to me tined equipment could work very effectively on our soils, even with huge amounts of muck going onto all our fields.”

His next step was to invest in a Kverneland 6m Tine Seeder drill. With double hopper extensions, the drill can also carry over 1,000kg of seed.

“The stagger between coulters is great for handling any surface trash and the 6m working width means we can cover about 33ha per day and still have time to go back and roll what we’ve drilled,” he says.

“Our fuel use with the drill is just 5 litres/ha, with a further 2.5 litres/ha used when rolling. We can easily beat the weather window now  – it’s a no-brainer.”

He says yields have not suffered in the last five years, with wheat yielding between eight to 10.5t/ha.

“It’s also great at drilling peas, though you need to hold back on the forward speed to ensure drilling depth is accurate, “ he says. “We also use the drill to plant forage maize. There is a bit of bunching, but we can get 30in rows by swapping coulter pipes around and blocking off tubes in the seed head.”

“Our seedbeds can sometimes be a bit cloddier, but the drill can keep going in conditions that would stop many others,” he adds. “But after two very awkward seasons with the weather, we’ve added a New Holland T6070 tractor to the fleet so that we can cultivate and drill at the same time.”

Now in its third season, the Kverneland TS drill is also equipped with wheel track eradicators and a set of pre-emergence markers to assist with slug pellet applications.

“The only drawbacks are increased slug activity which places more reliance on metaldehyde and we have noticed a bit more black-grass incidence too,” he says. “Though we can temper black-grass simply by using spring-sown crops in our rotation.”

“It’s now a hugely cost-effective cultivation and drilling system.”