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Lancashire farmer John Gamon admits that
the decision to go for a quieter running grain dryer was based
on personal reasons. "It was for our own convenience really
- we were having a lot of trouble with our previous dryer, every
time you walked past the farm it made your ears rattle".
The OPICO 375QF machine is now coming up to
its third season at Fowl Farm, Cuerdley, Warrington. And John
Gamon and son, Andrew, who trade as J.H. & A. Gamon and are
the third and fourth generation of the family to farm the land,
are delighted with it.
Of the farm's 370 acres, 250 are down to
cereals with a further 100 acres of rape and setaside. The remainder
produces potatoes and a bit of grass. Chief livestock enterprise
is free-range chickens, which are sold at the farm door.
The grain is dried in a Dutch Barn and then
moved to bins for storage on the other side of the yard. The
dryer is housed in a shed and, says John, "the quiet fan makes
all the difference when you're in there. You can just walk around
it and the noise doesn't blast your head off".
They are also very pleased with the dryer's
easy controls and reliability. The machine's 9-tonnes capacity
works in well with their 9-tonne trailers and the grain cleaner
is particularly effective, says John. "Our previous machine
didn't have a cleaner and we had loads of whiskers left on the
barley. This just chops them off - smashing."
"All in all, we're very pleased with the
machine If we swapped it, we'd go for another one."
Ends….
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