This yr marked a decade of Dale drills at Whiting Ash Farms in Malvern, Worcestershire, and David Fellows sees no prospect of that altering sooner or later.

His newest mannequin, a 10m Eco XL, arrived in 2019 and slots completely into the farm’s controlled-traffic system alongside a cultivator of the identical measurement.

See additionally: Driver’s view: Simon and David Fellows’ Dale Eco XL drill

“I nonetheless recognize what a disc drill can do, significantly when it comes to accuracy and their potential to work straight into inexperienced cowl crops. However the Dale’s tines give us a lot extra flexibility – even when the payoff is the occasional clumping of trash across the coulters.”

“Disc drills are too excessive threat for our system. You solely have to have a look at the climate over the previous couple of years – 2019 was a nightmare drilling season for everybody and 2020 bought very moist once more, but we bought every thing drilled.

The Dale is unbelievable within the moist, it’s comparatively low disturbance by tine drill requirements, and any injury is proscribed to the wheelings and simply rectified in our controlled-traffic system.

“If we’d had a Horsch Avatar then it might properly have spent 18 months within the shed throughout that interval.

“At 10m, we’ve additionally bought loads of capability to cowl our 1,000ha/yr, and extra if crucial, so we’re future-proofed.”

Simon and David Fellows © David Fellows

Harrow improve

The one alteration to the drill, apart from a brand new set of tungsten-carbide-tipped tines after 2,000ha, has been to suit a hydraulically managed folding harrow.

“The accuracy of the outdated harrow wasn’t nice because it concerned getting out and adjusting it manually with a set of spanners.

“The brand new setup provides us the flexibility to tweak it to supply a degree end, which is sometimes crucial if the tines throw a little bit of soil about – although we attempt to restrict that by conserving prime pace to a most of 10kph.

“We’re now taking a look at swapping the usual Z-shaped tines for Vaderstad Speedy variations, which can be much more aggressive. This could give us extra of a combing impact, which we are going to experiment with within the spring.”

Cultivator change

Regardless of operating a low-disturbance drill, cultivations nonetheless play a central function within the institution system to encourage a weed seed chit and hasten the breakdown of monitor to keep away from nitrogen lockup.

The one crops to be genuinely direct drilled are wheats following beans, and oilseed rape.

And it’s on the cultivator entrance that probably the most vital change has occurred since our first go to, with the Bednar Swifterdisc changed by a Horsch Joker in 2020.

“The Swifterdisc generally struggled with our topography. It’s mainly cut up into two 5m sections and as we’re working shallow – about 2in (50mm) – there’s little margin for error relating to following floor contours and sustaining a constant working depth.

“By comparability, the Joker is far more refined, with 5 sections and accumulators on the wings that preserve issues much more even.”

Hopper filler

© David Fellows

Given its 10m working width and 80ha/day output, the drill has a voracious urge for food for seed, and filling the 6,000 litre hopper with luggage resulted in vital downtime.

Having seen farmers within the jap counties operating drill fillers, David determined it was value gearing up with one thing comparable.

“Folding up, shifting to a central level to fill, after which working beneath swinging seed luggage was neither protected nor environment friendly. As a substitute, we now have all seed saved in bulk on the yard.

“That is then loaded into an outdated gritter physique mounted on a trailed water bowser chassis fitted with flotation tyres.

“We discovered an auger for £6,500 from a agency known as Pom in Poland and original brackets to suit it to the rear of the hopper, in order that it’s fed by the gritter’s mattress belts. That has slashed filling time from 30-40min with the outdated system to simply 8min.

“The one modification we have to make is to suit grasping boards, as the present capability is 5t – we need to enhance that to match the drill’s 6t tank.”