Claydon

[Oscar]

@Brisel , how do you get on with slopes as that was the reason I went Sumo . I found that on cross slopes ,the top coulters were to shallow while the down hill side would be too deep hence the individual coulters of the DTS.

 

[Case290]

What’s all this talk about claydon saving money . So far it’s cost me a extra drill and set of discs.

 

[Flintstone]

£80k saving? What were you doing before? I'm on 2200 acres of crops & managed £49k savings by moving to this system.

How do you find spring crop yields?

Can you tell us why you didn't like the 4.8m kit please?

I was paying £140,000 per annum for a full stubble to stubble service beforehand, and now my fixed costs (depreciation, fuel, metal, repairs, insurance etc) are £78k less. Ok, you could argue that the saving isn't directly attributable to the drill, but in a way I see that it is. The drill allows me to operate with zero staffing, only one medium size tractor, no cultivations and the subsequent annual fuel and metal savings too. My total fuel bill (excluding grain drying gas) on 1,100 acres last year was £4,620.

Spring crop yields were great in the first year, but as you said, we have had two pretty tough Springs since then, and I'd say that has robbed around 15% of yield for everyone, but this cannot be blame on the establishment system. If anything, I think the "not beating the moisture out of the soil" benefit of the system has actually helped the crops get up and away with seedbed moisture, rather than sitting in dust for three weeks awaiting for some rain.

Regarding the 4.8 metre kit........

Well, I took on some contract drilling this autumn and I decided that a extra 15% to drill would be made easier by an extra 20% width. At £3k it seemed to make sense. However, the drill just wasn't the same after it was fitted. The outside leading legs and coulter legs were at a completely different depth to the rest of the drill, and I had 700 acres of autumn drilled cereals that looked something like this. I was not a happy bunny.

The depth difference was around 3 inches compared to the other 12 seeding legs, and there was nothing that could be done about it. After about three weeks, about 40% of the super-deep seed on the outside legs did emerge from about 5 inches, but it was weak, with thinner/sparce rows, and has been visible ever since, even though the rows all now show.

My trouble is that I'm a perfectionist, and with something like Spring barley that needs to be at exactly the right depth, I'm just not happy about leaving it on for March/April drilling.

This is the only problem I have had with the drill and I can't wait to get it back to 4 metres, as it does such a superb job. As I said, Claydon are a brilliant firm to deal with, a bunch of friendly and helpful people, and I cannot recommend them highly enough.

 

[Case290]

Wow.
If there any good it will be sorted out asp . I expect claydon wouldn’t be happy with that either. I’m sure there sort that out before March.

 

[Flintstone]

In fairness they are being very good about it, as always, and it's exactly why I do like to deal with a family firm who stand behind their product.

Looks like I'm just going to have to do 15% more hours in the seat from now on!

 

[Case290]

Just get them to sort it. Or was the tractor not happy about pulling it

 

[Flintstone]

Tractor was fine, and two legs added very little extra drag. I'm returning it to a 4 metre.

 

[Badshot]

Was the depth difference because of a design fault, or because the new tines were stronger?

 

[Brisel]

@Brisel , how do you get on with slopes as that was the reason I went Sumo . I found that on cross slopes ,the top coulters were to shallow while the down hill side would be too deep hence the individual coulters of the DTS.

The drill does crab quite a lot and you get double drilled rows where the staggering of the front & rear coulters overlap or underlap depending on which way you're looking at it. The batter boards don't do as good a job either. I went to see a local user of an 8m trailed Hybrid (@fred.950 's predecessor) & he disliked the hillside capability - that was the main reason I chose a mounted machine instead of trailed though if I were starting again I'd go trailed instead mostly because of the weight of the drill, lack of hopper capacity and harder to add a fertiliser option without front mounted tanks. The depth does vary on the uphill/downhill ends but after a couple of weeks you can't see any difference in the crop. The pressurised wing sections do float quite well which helps.

What’s all this talk about claydon saving money . So far it’s cost me a extra drill and set of discs.

Not replacing an employee who left voluntarily, so from 3 operators to 2
Selling;
2x tractors
7f Plough
5m Topdown
6m Rapid drill
All the associated costs of wearing parts, tyres, fuel, overtime etc. A set of tyres on my flinty soils lasted 3000 hours. That looks set to double as we're not operating in loose soil anymore. We do less hours/tractor too
I saved 44 days/year too, mostly ploughing for spring crops
Opportunity to use cover crops better, funded by Countryside Stewardship and spreading the cost of the drill further
More spray days because I don't have tramline ruts any more
The subsoiler is sat in the nettles rusting now. It only gets used for pulling muck heap sites instead of all tramlines & headlands before (25% of the farm every year)
No major seedbed moisture loss with DD (can be a bad thing too)

Offset by;
An extra 1/2 dose of slug pellets on osr and wheat after osr
More spring crops in the rotation - with the last 2 dry springs this has been the most costly in net farm margin though weed control has improved, as has the soil health. Spring break crops just don't make the same margins as winter ones
Heavier set of rolls needed to consolidate around the seed in the furrows
Straw rake - a slight luxury at the time but has turned out to be more useful than anticipated for stale seedbeds
A bigger & beefier slug pelleter in anticipation of lots more pellet use. In reality it hasn't been much worse than before
Needs better management - more patience when conditions are marginal, especially in the spring
No fewer passes, thought these are lighter, wider, faster and much cheaper than the power hungry deep tillage we were doing before

 

[Brisel]

In fairness they are being very good about it, as always, and it's exactly why I do like to deal with a family firm who stand behind their product.

Looks like I'm just going to have to do 15% more hours in the seat from now on!

15% more hours than a 4m you ran happily for a couple of years? Sorry to hear the extension kit hasn't worked out. I'll make a phone call to a mate just west of me who had a 4.8m from new to see how they sorted it.

I've just got to sort my pre Xmas diary then I'll be in touch - your crops look fantastic & I'll buy you lunch if you can spare the time to educate a Dorset peasant for a couple of hours

 

[Fuzzy]

I was paying £140,000 per annum for a full stubble to stubble service beforehand, and now my fixed costs (depreciation, fuel, metal, repairs, insurance etc) are £78k less. Ok, you could argue that the saving isn't directly attributable to the drill, but in a way I see that it is. The drill allows me to operate with zero staffing, only one medium size tractor, no cultivations and the subsequent annual fuel and metal savings too. My total fuel bill (excluding grain drying gas) on 1,100 acres last year was £4,620.

Spring crop yields were great in the first year, but as you said, we have had two pretty tough Springs since then, and I'd say that has robbed around 15% of yield for everyone, but this cannot be blame on the establishment system. If anything, I think the "not beating the moisture out of the soil" benefit of the system has actually helped the crops get up and away with seedbed moisture, rather than sitting in dust for three weeks awaiting for some rain.

Regarding the 4.8 metre kit........

Well, I took on some contract drilling this autumn and I decided that a extra 15% to drill would be made easier by an extra 20% width. At £3k it seemed to make sense. However, the drill just wasn't the same after it was fitted. The outside leading legs and coulter legs were at a completely different depth to the rest of the drill, and I had 700 acres of autumn drilled cereals that looked something like this. I was not a happy bunny.

View attachment 745860

View attachment 745862

The depth difference was around 3 inches compared to the other 12 seeding legs, and there was nothing that could be done about it. After about three weeks, about 40% of the super-deep seed on the outside legs did emerge from about 5 inches, but it was weak, with thinner/sparce rows, and has been visible ever since, even though the rows all now show.

My trouble is that I'm a perfectionist, and with something like Spring barley that needs to be at exactly the right depth, I'm just not happy about leaving it on for March/April drilling.

This is the only problem I have had with the drill and I can't wait to get it back to 4 metres, as it does such a superb job. As I said, Claydon are a brilliant firm to deal with, a bunch of friendly and helpful people, and I cannot recommend them highly enough.

I find it hard to believe Claydon have walked away from this problem without offering to fix the issue. Are all the legs and brackets the same ? Can the side extensions be fitted upside down by mistake?

 

[Brisel]

set of discs.

Sorry to come back to your post again - what set of discs? Ones to make a tilth as a pre drilling pass?

 

[Flintstone]

I find it hard to believe Claydon have walked away from this problem without offering to fix the issue. Are all the legs and brackets the same ? Can the side extensions be fitted upside down by mistake?

I didn’t say they’d walked away! They’ve been very good about it. I’ve said I want it back as s 4 metre (I’m not the only person with the problem) and they’ve obliged with no hassle.

 

[Case290]

I run the older v drill so disc to help chop the residue and level a few fields Lemkin Rubin 6m and its great can drop them in if required but shallow is the plan. Or if no tith wiz over pre drilling.

 

[fred.950]

@Brisel
My predecessor didn’t like anything very much
I think there was an actual design fault with the 8m depth control which is why they took it back for a 6m. Geoff came down himself last year and fitted some modified arms which have improved the depth further, the drill has become a very important part of the rotation now and I can’t see it going anywhere but we are lucky to have two drills I think!

 

[juke]

@Brisel
My predecessor didn’t like anything very much
I think there was an actual design fault with the 8m depth control which is why they took it back for a 6m. Geoff came down himself last year and fitted some modified arms which have improved the depth further, the drill has become a very important part of the rotation now and I can’t see it going anywhere but we are lucky to have two drills I think!

Do you have a disc drill as your second drill ?

 

[Andrew K]

I didn’t say they’d walked away! They’ve been very good about it. I’ve said I want it back as s 4 metre (I’m not the only person with the problem) and they’ve obliged with no hassle.

We never had this problem when we ran a 4.8 hybrid which used factory assembled extensions.I would get a man down from the factory to see if you can sort it?
Maybe some outer depth wheels could be fitted on the wings?

 

[fred.950]

Do you have a disc drill as your second drill ?

Yes, I appreciate people get on really well with the Claydon but it doesn’t suit us for spring cropping.

 

[Brisel]

I run the older v drill so disc to help chop the residue and level a few fields Lemkin Rubin 6m and its great can drop them in if required but shallow is the plan. Or if no tith wiz over pre drilling.

I kept an 8.2m Carrier for this purpose too. Mostly for opening the top on hard heavy clay or for a better stale seedbed e.g. after oats before wheat.

 

[Flintstone]

My Holy Grail item to get my system working perfectly would be a set of lightweight leading harrows on my ring rolls to gently fill over the Claydon furrows if I roll at circa 20 degrees to drill direction. I feel this would give a better pre-em surface, better consolidation a split second later with the rolls and also better slug defence.

I don't want to hijack this thread so have started a new one in the Machinery section for any genuine suggestions or leads to where I might find this.

https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/ring-rolls-leading-harrow.262278/