Tracks, Horsepower and Single-Pass Tillage

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Following on from the discussion on the Claas/Omaha Factory Thread.

Has anybody seen Oliver Walston's  www.thriplow-farms.co.uk website? He has a diary for every year since he took over the farm in 1974. It is extremely interesting, and sad too - he went from all Ford to all JD :-(  [via Deutz and Schluter]

They started minimum till last year and bought a 275hp Claas Challenger to drive a Horsch 7.5m cultivator and 6m [replaced later with 8m] Horsch drill.

Lee - how does their system compare to yours? I know that their soil is quite light. How big a factor is this?

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soil type is the major factor as oliver is doing more of a scratch approach instead of what were doing. he may have to use the cultivator twice in some situations. and he will still have to subsoil routinely, where as were doing all that in one go. we can lift the legs out if we require. the simba solo is a very versatile machine.

90% of the soil we work across is clay and the solo is about the best tool on the market for it, as its non-inversion unlike the plough.

we work from the top down instead of bottom upwards like a plough.

i like the horsch drill although i prefer a cultivator drill such as the simba freeflow as it does another cultivation in front of the drilling coulters. again oliver can get away without that as he is on light cambridge soils.

alot of people are doing the same as him but unfortunately our soils would not allow it. the principl eis the same however as were both reducing passes thus saving on time, fuel, wearing parts etc etc.

we can now establish a crop for less than £25/acre compared to th eold plough based system of about £45/acre. most of this went on the power harrow as it mostly had 2 passes infront of the drill. the new system has allowed us to shed excess kit and put some money back in the bank. people say we were stupid spending that amount of money. however my reply is that in the long run i am saving money and if you cost the new kit out over 8 years then its no different than buying a new plough, drill, power harrow and a tractor to pull them!

if your considering the move then i would say go for it as we are now more effcient than ever

lee