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Tackle surprise
Printed in Eastern Daily Press
February 9th 2002
A new approach to seedbed preparation has
been a great success on a Norfolk farm. It
has achieved good germination and significant savings on slug
control.
Richard Holden farms 700 acres of mainly
cereals and rape at Priory Farm, Bedingham, Bungay. Prior
to 2001, seedbed preparation relied on furrow press followed
by a combination drill.
"But after 2000 when things went hard
and last year when conditions were too wet to use the furrow
press we thought we ought to have an alternative," said
Mr Holden. Last August he took delivery of a 7.3 metre set of
OPICO Vari-Flex Rolls equipped with a ShattaBoard levelling
board and large 24-inch rings.
Mounted in front of the rolling assembly
to give extra levelling and consolidation of the ploughed ground,
the levelling board can be lifted out of the way when not required.
They did not need to use a furrow press on the heavy land last
year.
"When the OPICO equipment arrived we
went into a 30-acre field that had been ploughed about three
weeks and was very hard. We started with the rolls but when
we put the ShattaBoard down we couldn't believe what it did.
It is one of the few machines I have had on the farm that made
my jaw drop. It just did exactly what I wanted it to do, without
a lot of setting up."
Mr Holden said that price considerations
have made him a late convert to folding rolls. "The advantage
of the sprung ShattaBoard mounted in front of the rolls is that
it isn't going to wear out because the soil is acting on itself.
It's pushing a lot of soil in front. This is why, on our heavy
land, we use a 170hp tractor and even with duals sometimes get
20 per cent wheel slip."
" The difference between the OPICO
system and a normal harrow is that because you've got four tons
of rolls behind the levelling board, the machine can't jump
about. Obviously there is an optimum time to use it, which is
before the ploughed ground gets too hard."
It was effective on 12 acres of parkland
that Mr Holden's next-door neighbour needed to drill with a
spring tine drill - "not the best tool for the job."
"As soon as we drove on to this field it was so soft that
the tractor dropped in about nine inches," said Mr Holden,
"so we put the ShattaBoard down with 170hp on the front.
We finished the field and rolled it down and now there is a
superb crop of wheat on it."
Despite wet weather he finished autumn drilling
on schedule. "In fact, we rolled some barley twice and
against the advice of my agronomist I didn't buy any slug pellets.
If I had gone along with the recommendations, which in some
places was to put slug pellets down before we drilled, I would
have spent about £3000. This saving has gone a long way
towards paying for the rolls," he added.
Fewer
Clods - User Mr John Collen
Germination
Improved - User Mr Eric Gibson
Savings
in Cornwall - Users Mike and Brian
Salmon
For Information on the OPICO Vari-Flex
Rolls click the button 
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