Tarw Coch
Member
- Location
- Bottom of Wats Dyke
Talking of technology or living up to expectations, I have a funny shaped field , not a straight hedge on it but a couple on slight curves.Contractor with a 2 year old varispreader managed to put in exactly the right information and something malfunctioned and the 5 acre field got 1800 kg instead of 750, a lot of it on the one run because it went full open and wouldn't shut again. To be fair I was allowed a ton of fertiliser, he was going to try and get it back from the dealer. Never liked to ask how he got on though. Bit if thats at 2 year old, what will it be like at 15?
Put maize on it last year and at the suggestion of one of the lads from the contractor, decided to plough and work with a slight curve to save on short turns as when the drillman came to drill it he could plot a curved A B line on his green star.
When he came to drill he explained to me how the first run was very important, the slightest twitch and it would get worse with every pass. Field was drilled and rows came up in a nice curved line , perfect.
After maize the field was put into wheat, and was drilled in similar fashion with another hedge but I guess driving with a steady hand on first pass on furrows I’m the dark with drill combi ain’t quite as easy as on worked land when drilling maize.
So whilst the first pass is almost perfect, almost wasn’t good enough and the further across the field you go, the more crooked the rows get so that by the far side of the field there is a turn of almost 90 degrees in the tramlines.
So whilst the technology is marvellous when everything is right, when things ain’t going quite to plan it just makes things worse. In this particular case the field could have been drilled tidier without the green star.................probably after the driver had consumed 10 pints.
We have agreed that next time the field is drilled it’s going to have a straight A B line and we’ll live with the short turns.
Obviously green star makes the drivers life easier most of the time but the reality is that he was perfectly capable of drilling dead straight before and if he had opted to drill on a curve would have taken any twitches out on the next pass, but that’s progress for you.