In December 1998 Pembroke Agricultural Contractor Neil Batchelor won an OPICO Grass Harrow in a Farmers Guardian competition.

He then purchased an OPICO Air 8 Seeder to use in conjunction with the Grass Harrow. Since then the grassland side of his business has developed significantly and the service has become so sought after in South Wales that the equipment is now being upgraded to increase output.

To date the grass harrow and seeder have been used on about 1000 acres from harrowing to remove dead grass and stimulate growth to sowing grass and harrowing it in, re-seeding existing pasture and land used for cereals.

The machine has also been used for sowing stubble turnips and fodder rape and for weeding " There are a few people going organic round here and we have been doing some work fro them," said Neil Batchelor. "The harrow and seeder combination does a damn good job and I'm moor than pleased with it. However, with the single fan seeder sometimes we had to go over the ground twice to make sure we got a good spread. This year we are changing to the twin fan seeder to get better cover."

January 2001