Direct drill demonstrations.

DieselRob

Member
BASE UK Member
Location
North Yorkshire
Nick is only a small farmer like me so there not interested, you need to be a big farmer to get demos or even participate in surveys
Load of crap, I’m only a small farm but I managed to get the 3 drills I was seriously interested to in on demo this autumn. 2 via a dealer and the Weaving Sabre tine on the demo tour.

All 3 came on tractors and I filled the fuel tank back up after the demo. The Claydon and Weaving were later in the autumn so I put it to them to drill the whole field ~17ac each or not do it at all (rather than the 1 bag demo they would usually do) as I wouldn’t be able to finish the field in my current way. They both obliged and I have subsequently bought a Weaving off the back of the demo.

Someone else has said it but Weaving trucked their demo machines up north then work their way back down home, sometimes it’s luck of the draw or holding your nerve to still have something to drill with a demo when it gets to you. I can’t just remember but there were 8 or 10 other people who came to see the weaving do it’s demo here.

As a side point I’ve never had a problem getting a demo of a tractor/telehandler either
 

Fish

Member
Location
North yorkshire
When I decided to go down the dd route, I contacted the local dealer of the machine I was interested in, not only was there no demo machine ( frankly I wasn't expecting one ) they hadn't even sold a machine, so there wasn't even the possibility of talking to a user in this area.
Anyhow I bought one, and after 7 years I'm still very happy with my choice.

Sometime you just have to have courage in your convictions.

After all there is more to dd than just the drill and all drills work on their day.
 

chaffcutter

Moderator
Arable Farmer
Location
S. Staffs
@Clive we had a direct drill day here about three years ago when they all drilled marked plots which were taken through to harvest and results compared,canyou linkto it please Clive
 
Nick is only a small farmer like me so there not interested, you need to be a big farmer to get demos or even participate in surveys
Was only talking about this , a while a go , with a small but very busy ag bussiness , his opinion was he would rather have ,a good number of smaller customers than a handfull of big ones ,because if big boys have a policy change , its a big chunk of bussiness ,goes in one hit ,
which would you prefer 6x 500 acre ,than one 3000 acre customers
 

tr250

Member
Location
Northants
Load of crap, I’m only a small farm but I managed to get the 3 drills I was seriously interested to in on demo this autumn. 2 via a dealer and the Weaving Sabre tine on the demo tour.

All 3 came on tractors and I filled the fuel tank back up after the demo. The Claydon and Weaving were later in the autumn so I put it to them to drill the whole field ~17ac each or not do it at all (rather than the 1 bag demo they would usually do) as I wouldn’t be able to finish the field in my current way. They both obliged and I have subsequently bought a Weaving off the back of the demo.

Someone else has said it but Weaving trucked their demo machines up north then work their way back down home, sometimes it’s luck of the draw or holding your nerve to still have something to drill with a demo when it gets to you. I can’t just remember but there were 8 or 10 other people who came to see the weaving do it’s demo here.

As a side point I’ve never had a problem getting a demo of a tractor/telehandler either
We’re the same often get dealers ring up saying they have a demo in the area would we like to try. I usually decline unless it’s a machine we will be changing soon. I always tell the reps if I ask for a demo they got at least 50% chance of selling me it
 

Landrover

Member
We’re the same often get dealers ring up saying they have a demo in the area would we like to try. I usually decline unless it’s a machine we will be changing soon. I always tell the reps if I ask for a demo they got at least 50% chance of selling me it
A couple of years ago I tried to get a round baler on demo at harvest time, I tried 3 different dealers selling different brands about two months before harvest that I wanted a demo baler, only one got back in touch at harvest time, bought a baler off them, I change my baler every 4 years so it's regular custom, the dealer that I bought my previous baler didn't even get back to an answer phone message
 

Classichay

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
The moon
Funny no ones mentioned the king of drills mzuri? I think you can go witness their results but demos are hard to get too when we’ve tried, i think its too easy to be convinced by trials plots which have been fussed over for months before hand. Like modern wheat varieties potential under glass is a biggg disparity between out in the field.
 
Last edited:

Robt

Member
Location
Suffolk
Probably need 3000 plus acres to get taken seriously by the trade these days.times are going to change rapidly fir the machinery dealers I beleive.they may then wish they had taken enquiries seriously from us small peasant land owners
nick...
Sorry Nick but I disagree . I regularly go on demo with our dealers. I’ve been to 100 acre farms and 10,000 acre farms. I know of friends in the industry who would say the same. I do feel for you ans can’t understand why you can’t get a demo as not only are you a good bloke but you also don’t mess people around. You would only have to look at your yard to see it’s clean, tidy and has new ish machines.
 

Brisel

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Midlands
Funny no ones mentioned the king of drills mzuri? I think you can go witness their results but demos are hard to get too when we’ve tried

I never had a problem getting a Mzuri demo. They were one of the better firms when it came to communication and they were trying to get a few drills into a new area. This was in 2015 but they were at every local field demo day with lots of other brands.

Who did you ask? A dealer or Mzuri directly? I think that one of Mzuri’s guys is in here. Will?
 
Last edited:

nick...

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
south norfolk
Funny no ones mentioned the king of drills mzuri? I think you can go witness their results but demos are hard to get too when we’ve tried, i think its too easy to be convinced by trials plots which have been fussed over for months before hand. Like modern wheat varieties potential under glass is a biggg disparity between out in the field.
Ironically I’ve had a call from them this morning.i did see one of their drills going locally 18 months ago but I’m lacking an aweful lot of horse power to pull one.i was impressed and I documented it on here at the time.
nick...
 

KB6930

Member
Location
Borders
Some of you guys must live in a totally different world of dealers and manufacturers to us . No experience of the particular subject on here but if we ask for a
demo of a machine we'll generally get one .

You wouldn't dream of buying something without trying it especially a grain drill !

Our neighbour have been trying direct drills last year and have more lined up for this spring so they're definitely there to be had
 

clbarclay

Member
Location
Worcestershire
Even if you manage to get all the makes in the same field at once, it's still only a snapshot of the drills on one set of weather and soil conditions.

Contractor strip till drilled OSR gave us probably our best ever crop the first year when we wanted a demo, but was then a total failure the following year. The failure was largely weather related, but showed that wonder drills can't work miracles.
 
I had a very positive experience with Weaving, I rang for a demo a couple of months prior to drilling, when the time came I got a phone call saying they would be in the area next week and did I still want a demo, they turned up and drilled four fields for me, it was getting quite late and they were happy to stay until gone 11pm to get the fields finished, they then came back the next morning to fetch their drill and tractor and gave me a quote. I then bought a drill off them. Seem to me a very professional company that are good to deal with, but I can only go off my experience!
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

  • 0 %

    Votes: 79 42.0%
  • Up to 25%

    Votes: 66 35.1%
  • 25-50%

    Votes: 30 16.0%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 7 3.7%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

  • 1,291
  • 1
As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
Top