Gav836

One or two members may notice that this has now happened and that they have individual topics in their own names on certain boards for their various posts, this has solely been done for the reasons stated above by Sean so please do not see it that we have singled any one member out in an act of malice.

Forklift course this morning so I'm now qualified to teach on the side loader types found in timber merchants and similar, followed by a relaxing afternoon. These things are good fun to drive

I did wonder if you might have had Vernon, I've known him for a long time now and speak to him regularly as we both teach the same pesticide modules as well.

That's not one of the courses I get involved with, there's already another couple of guys doing it for the training groups I work for. Did you do it through Otley or one of the independent groups Smithy?

Forklifts, Pa1,2,4,6,11,SC pesticides, tractors, ploughing and any other machinery ones that may crop up.

They'll keep her busy on there that's for certain. It's one of the farms that I go on as a training instructor.

That's the sort of booking you need Tris! A lot of my bookings only happen for a few weeks ahead so can be a bit frustrating at times. I am hopeful though that I have work booked for next harvest already plus one of my fellow instructors is packing up so may put some more training courses my way.

No triple rinsed ones Chris, no need to wash them if you're going to burn them, saves time when filling, thought you'd have known that

That wasn't at a place called Three Holes was it? Place is right on a sharp bend on the A1101 if it's the one I'm thinking of.

I have to agree unfortunately, no rain to speak of in the forecast for here and turning colder in the next week. Hopefully we're both proved wrong. I think Spring barley could be popular around here next year as well but for different reasons. There's a lot of decimated OSR crops around here thanks to CSFB, in some cases neighbouring fields are a mix of one good stand and its neighbour is bare!

I'm not surprised, I've been seeing some of my friends comments on Facebook from down your way as to how dry it is, it's unbelievable how it can still be so dry down with you after all the rain elsewhere in the East, it's not that greater distance between us really either! Hopefully you'll get some rain with you soon and that the forecast is wrong!

That was fairly light land there Mike, we've had 70mm of rain here this month (sorry Chris!!) so some fields are a bit damp in a place or two but no where near as wet as it has been at times.

After having a couple of weeks away from the farm I've spent three days back there this week carting sugar beet and should be there next week doing the same. They run their own harvester which is shared with another local farm, between the two of them they carry out contract work with it as well. The harvester is a 59 reg Agrifac Quatro six row, this is the fourth year that they've owned it, it's only going to lift 450-500 acres of beet this season as customers have cut their acreages due to the abysmal prices being paid for the crop currently. I've had one of the 6930's on the Richard Western 18 ton trailer carting, it holds about 1.5 harvester tank loads, the customers usually put an extra trailer in with us as well.

I think we've spread in the region of 2500 tons of yard muck over the land as well, the last of it was done with one of the 6930's and one of the old Ford 7840's both on Bunnings spreaders. We've two drills going, the other 6930 has been on a Kverneland tine drill putting wheat in (no pics I'm afraid, been elsewhere!) while I had the 7230r on an Amazone combination fitted with a shakerator tine bar with four legs on it drilling the barley.

We've just about finished all our Autumn land work now with only 40 acres of barley left to drill following potatoes on a field they rented to a large grower, they finished lifting them this lunchtime and I just managed to finish cultivating it before it got too wet. A few more pictures from the past few weeks, we had a slight bearing failure on the baler resulting in a 5 acre BBQ! No real damage caused though and we were baling again 15 hrs later. We've also had a 6155r direct drive out on demo so decided to test it on the 6f Kv plough in very dry and hard ground. We both said that we prefer the autopower transmission but it's what we're used to.

Sorry Smithy missed this, we do use a 6930 on it as well but to get the best out of it with the tines in any depth then it needs the HP of the 7230r

The trouble is there's so many clowns out there doing building work, decorating and other home improvement related work that finding good ones isn't as easy as it used to be.

Drilling winter barley with a JD 7230r and 3m Amazone combination mounted on a shakerator frame while boss drills wheat with 6930 and Kverneland tine drill

Today's job, using the 6930 on an Amazone Cenius Super cultivator we had on demo, very good tool but heavy! The front wheels of the tractor left the ground more than once!!

7230r and Simba 6m double press getting land ready for stubble turnips. Using Greenstar GPS on this tractor to make life easier.

6930 and 40 foot articulated trailer straw carting. JCB 541-70 unloading.

It's been a busy few weeks lately, the training is now taking a back seat to the farm work. I've been doing a variety of jobs over that time from cutting grass for hay (which the weather ruined!!!) to straw carting and cultivating. The main tractors I've been driving are one of two JD 6930 auto powers, a 7230r, Fendt 415 and one of two Ford 7840's which feature in this topic back in 2007!! All the other blues have gone off the farm due to issues with the last 3 they owned. On with the pictures, 6930 and mower knocking down second cut grass for hay/haylage which we caught right just before it rained!

Agreed on the wet winters but certainly in some areas the bad drainage is being caused by using minimum tillage techniques on land that doesn't suit them, I've seen the resulting mess first hand unfortunately. I know Lemken have been doing some research into various establishment methods and techniques with interesting results where black grass is concerned, Spring cropping certainly seems to be a valuable weapon to use now.

I'm sure that is what the answer is going to be to several of the issues we are suffering with in the arable industry at present Chris. We need to go back to looking at and utilising rotational and cultivational methods of pest/weed control instead of looking at chemicals first. Some of the problems we have, including black grass, could have perhaps been avoided if we'd used them in the first place instead of reaching for the sprayer first.

It's not just your rape that's full of flea beetle, the rape where I'm working is too, the heap in the shed is clicking and moving around with the damn things!!