12 minute read
Farm View
David Ellin manages a 1500-acre estate on the South Downs near Brighton in West Sussex. The estate grows 600 acres of combinable crops and runs a herd of 100 suckler cows. The machinery fleet contains a number of modern classics.
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Demo tractor impressions
After a year of planning and six months of hard work, I’m excited to report that our brand new farm o diversification enterprise is div ready to open for business. Aptly ready named ‘Foot of the Downs’, our named ‘Fo shepherds’ hut and two luxury camping pods will offer visitors the opportunity to stay on a working farm and enjoy the fantastic countryside we have here.
Using farm labour and machinery, we managed to prepare the site, install the services and position the pods ourselves. The units weigh 6.5t, and they had to be transferred onto our bale trailers to get them to the site. There they were offloaded and positioned using our two telehandlers, one at each side. I was amazed when the JCB Loadall 531-70 only just managed to lift its side, while the old Matbro TR250 responded by lifting with the engine only on tickover.
The Matbro clocked up an extra 200 hours on the build, and it has once again been invaluable. However, while I was picking up the final load of haylage bales, I noticed a distinct smell of burning rubber followed by the tell-tale rattle of a broken drive coupler. Within an hour, we had the cab jacked up and the part, which links the engine to the transmission drive shaft, removed. Spares are still readily available for this machine, which is very reassuring.
Over the past few weeks I’ve been able to try out some demonstration tractors. The tractor I would like to change, a Massey Ferguson 7620, has been a great machine; it is the perfect weight and size for what we do and it has impressed us with its low running costs and reliability. However, as it nears 7000 hours on the clock, and with our other main tractors are not too far behind, the time is approaching when we need to make a change.
I had never driven a Fendt, but the new 724 Vario that I recently drove was incredibly impressive in every way. Massey Ferguson’s new 8S.225 also impressed me with its Dyna-E transmission, great styling and an unbelievably quiet cab. The tractor that really surprised me was a Case IH Puma 240 CVX. I’ve not had much to do with Case IH before, apart from driving a Maxxum 5130, but the Puma really felt at home on a farm like ours. Perhaps I sensed a little blue and terracotta heritage in its build?
Unfortunately, my enthusiasm for the new machines was dealt a blow on receiving the eye-watering purchase prices. I may now have to review my replacement policy.
Finally, I’ve just finished watching the new series of Clarkson’s Farm with the family. I must say, I’m full of praise for what was an excellent portrayal of the reality of farming today in Britain. Of course, it was great to laugh at Jeremy’s inexperience, his machinery purchases, especially the enormous Lamborghini R8 270, and the banter he had with the people who helped him along the way. He was genuinely aghast at the measly profit he had made after a year of investment, hard work and stress, yet he said he had loved every minute of being a farmer, and that for me was the highlight. I couldn’t agree more.
John Carter farms 150 acres near Nanaimo on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada, growing malting barley, spring milling wheat and grass for hay. John, who emigrated to Canada from Lincolnshire in 1982, farms with a fleet of classic Ford and County models built between 1963 and 1989.
Gearboxes are replaced
As I write this column, our harvest of 90 acres is half done. The crops are not great due to the heatwave that hit us in late June. Temperatures reached highs of 41 degrees C just when the barley was starting to fill. The rye didn’t suffer as much thought, and it is all harvested now and in the bin.
We still have baling to do, which is a bit of a problem as the straw is so dry we are having difficulty feeding it into the big baler, as it just breaks up. It has consistently been 30 degrees C out here for five weeks and what grain we have harvested has come in at 10 per cent moisture.
On the machinery front, how is it that when you put the combine away in good running condition, only one hour into using it again, a link on the elevator table comes off? We came to a grinding halt with lights flashing everywhere, telling me to stop. This may be an old combine, but all its monitors still work. Anyway, I did have a spare link and so far I’ve had no more problems.
c th late highs o the barleyw
It has not been so good on the tractor front. My Ford 5030 Synchro had a gearbox failure in April. I have to admit that it was partly my fault, as, in the absence of an operator’s manual, I was unaware that the 5030’s Kubota-made gearbox has its own oil reservoir. When we checked, it had no oil in its gearbox.
After making some enquiries, I discovered that many of the parts for these gearboxes are no longer available. Which is rather handy, not, as the similar Ford 3930 we have been running for 25 years also has a problem with its gearbox! As I write this, two 8x2 Ford constant mesh gearboxes are on their way to us from Virginia. I was told they will slot right in. It would be great if we could still use the Dual Power part of the transmission, but I’m not too hopeful on that.
Next, we come to our Ford 7840. I love this old girl and was busy baling with it when, with no warning whatsoever, she just stopped with an ‘E19’ error code on the dash.
This appears to be for the dump valve for the clutch. We are told it will most likely be the solenoid, but at the moment the 7840 is a sorry-looking sight out in the field.
As a result of all this, James, our mechanic, has told me that these lovely old tractors have to go as the gearbox repairs could be costly. I have entered my 6640 into the next Ritche Bros auction in October, and the 7840, once repaired, will go in another auction in December.
I may keep my two-wheel drive 6640 as its gearbox has been overhauled. The other option would be to have the gearboxes overhauled, one at a time. I will get estimates.
There have been many changes in my life recently, not least with the loss of my wife Rosemary last year, and more are on the way. More on that, and a 6000-mile round trip to Price Edward Island, next time.
With his father Gerry and brother Gerard, David King farms 200 arable acres in Co. Louth and Co. Meath in the Republic of Ireland and also runs a small agricultural contracting business. The family also carry out well drilling, construction and building fabrication work.
Reading up on combine
With the weather turning for the worst, leading to scattered heavy thundery showers and spot flooding, this harvest could f be a long haul. We had no be winter barley this year, but we winte have tried cutting our oats, which may havetried be going for porridge, only to find they were not fit. We brought the combine back indoors, as the weather forecast was poor.
Our previous combine was 30 years old and was controlled by levers, buttons and knobs, whereas our ‘new’ one for this harvest, a 2012 Deutz-Fahr 6095, has digital readouts and electronics controls. It can be quite daunting. I was never very good at doing my homework at school, but I have spent many nights reading the operator’s manual while sitting in the cab.
All the sieve settings are still manual, but trying to get to know and understand all the different operations that monitor the running of the combine has been interesting. It arrived with a RDS Ceres 8000i yield monitor, which I got upgraded to yield mapping that can be recorded onto a SIM card and loaded onto a computer. So not only had I to study the combine manual, I also added this in for extra measure.
I’m very conscious of my surroundings when operating the combine, so I have added a new reversing camera at the rear. It makes a massive difference as it removes the blind spot at the rear. Costing only €150 (£127), I would recommend one to everyone.
The HGV-type wide-angle mirrors I have fitted to both sides of the combine have removed further blind spots. The beauty of these mirrors is that, when reversing, you can actually see the area you are about to steer into. As a final precaution, I have replaced the fire extinguisher near the engine compartment and also fitted two new extinguishers on either side of the header. Sometimes, the speed of access to the fire extinguisher can be vital in putting out the fire.
Turning to other machines, our John Deere 4850 is back together again and running well. Classic tractors are making good prices, so my advice to anyone who is rebuilding engines or carrying out major repairs is to keep a record of the receipts and repairs in case you sell the machine in the future. There can be a big difference in value between a machine that has had its organs replaced and a machine that has not.
We have just spent around €8000 (£6800) on our 4850, excluding our own time. This included the cost of a complete engine overhaul, upgraded injectors, a new splined hub in a clutch pack, new steel hydraulic lines behind the chassis frame and some more small bits. If you can produce evidence of past repairs, it will surely add to the value.
Finally, my father has recently come across an early Claeys MZ combine. It is one of the early types with the axles and gearbox from an army truck. The threshing mechanism runs on wooden hangers, rather than the later steel bars and rubber mountings. It is a tanker version and we have been told that it was displayed at the 1953 Cork Agricultural Show. We are trying to get more information.
Baling silage works best
With his father William, Peter James farms around 400 acres at Sancreed, near Penzance, Cornwall. The farm supports a herd of 125 dairy cows, beef cattle and a small sheep flock. Spring cereals and maize are grown as break crops. The family’s tractor fleet includes four Valmet and Valtra models.
Silage making has changed a lot for us over the past 30 years. We used to operate our own sideu mounted JF harvester for many m years, backed-up by a fleet of 6t year and 8t trailers. The week before we and 8t harvested was always reserved for harvested w putting the silage trailers together.
Grass was cut with a 7ft mower and rowed two into one depending on the thickness of crop. Back at the clamp, it was moved and levelled with an 80hp tractor with an 8ft rearmounted buckrake and rolled with the same tractor. A lot of tractors and machines were involved, not to mention staff, neighbours and friends. Very few farms now have access to additional labour for short periods of harvesting, while the units themselves are getting further apart.
Eventually, we solved the labour shortage by getting a contractor to harvest our silage with a high-output self-propelled forager. Our narrow roads were a struggle for these machines, while our tight farmyards were not conducive to speedy tip times. As a result, we always felt consolidation suffered, even with an extra tractor working on the clamp.
A brief spell involving a forage wagon followed, but again poor consolidation on the clamp led to excessive waste in the winter. With our farm placed in an NVZ and pollution laws getting ever tighter, we opted for round bales instead.
With the dairy cows now gone, this system suits our small fields, narrow roads and yards. It has also given us back our independence, as we are now able to cut and bale when individual fields or blocks are ready, which also allows us to group bales according to their quality.
We have always wrapped our bales in the yards where they were to be stacked, but with history repeating itself and labour again being hard to find, this season we wrapped more in the fields.
But what is the future for silage? Will everything just keep getting bigger? Probably yes, as it always has when you look back in time. However, with ever stricter environmental rules and rising fuel and plastic costs, perhaps something different could be the way forward?
Interestingly, a spell of recent very hot weather in these parts saw an army of conventional balers and flat-eight sledges being hauled out of sheds and put to work making hay. Many of these people were doubtless hoping to cash in on the lucrative equestrian market for this crop. Hay will always be a cheaper option than silage, but our Cornish climate doesn’t always guarantee its success.
Perhaps now is the time for the engineering companies and innovators to look again at forage conservation? Hay cubers and presses have been developed before, but never gained commercial acceptance. With agriculture’s impact on the environment increasingly being put under the microscope, perhaps the time has come to explore these avenues once more?
CORRECTION
While editing Charlie McCririck’s Farm View column in the August 2021 issue, we mistakenly described his new Landquip sprayer as a self-propelled CV 170. It is in fact a Landquip Electrac trailed model with a 3000-litre tank and 28m heavy-duty contractor booms. Sorry Charlie!
