phil phoenix

With difficulty!!

And I found a Deutz front weight for the new recruit.

Christmas presents to myself...............Second JD 6R and Lemken Combi drill and press for the layout, plus black Deutz Warrior 7250 for the mantlepiece.

Usually its the JD thats favoured and CNH sneered at, but interesting comments there Gav. Theres lots of 7Rs around here and they seem to be well thought off. However a friend who works on a Fendt farm and drives a 722 was bowled over with a new NH T7.270 on demo with the new cab on it.

We have a lot of JD9620RX around here these days as sadly CASE couldn't hang on to their Quadtrac marketshare. One of the biggest farms "Caley Farms" runs four of them, all 5 &6 seasons old. What I'm wondering is will they jump up to an 830 and replace two 9620s for one, or is that too big? Because if you go to an 830 you have to up spec the size of the cultivators running behind it which would be very expensive!

Nice. I was looking at a Valtra Q305 in that metallic red with black rims recently and I thought the colours would look really good on a Fendt 728. I'm not sold on black Fendts, somehow black seems to suit Valtra far better. Your red one looks good on silver rims but I would be interested to see one on black rims to compare what looks best.

Same type of disc drill as the new Horsch Pronto by UH.....................I am very happy with the Horsch.

Nice one Sipher, bold work indeed.

Excellent Grassmen video on Killens operation. I have to agree that the 8S has been a real grower on most ag people, some liked it straight away & others didn't, me included, but after 4 years its become part of the machinery landscape and as Mr Killen points out every new 8S he buys is better than the last as MF fine tune the product😎 I now really like the 8S as its got character, but I would still say that the new 7S.180 as an example is not as nice looking as the 7718S it replaced.

I saw this lovely old MF 3125 parked up near the roadside a couple of months ago.

After more than one self inflicted willy up I finally finished the second Stewart trailer, the grain version this time to go with the maize trailer. Fortunately once the paint and various transfers are added the iffy bits seem to dissapear😄 I do have to commend Alex on his excellent work in making these british trailers available to us model enthusiast's, I am sure I will buy more in the future. P.S You need to replace the 14 ton R.W with an 18 tonner, I would buy one of those👍

Its good that you can take it easily apart Paul, I couldn't live with all the plastic yellow parts on it, especially when the painted diecast parts look so good. I would take it apart further & undercoat the plastic and spray it JCB yellow just as I did with the telehandler, it makes a huge difference.

When's the Lemken Solitaire out as well? I don't see any UK sellers with any stock.

In early November we completed both the Maize harvest and the autumn drilling, the maize was relatively trouble free due to mild and mostly dry weather unlike last years washout. The drilling got completed by using four drills in the end, We had the Vaderstad spirit behind a big JD and the new Horsch Pronto behind the 6R 250 which worked splendidly together. A 3m Kuhn Venta combi did its best and a fourth machine a contracted in 6m Lemken Solitaire totally outshone the Kuhn. Assessing the four units and the increasing acreage we will be harvesting next year, I have decided to sell the Vaderstad as we don't need its built in fertilizer appliction due to the success of our home made digestate, also the Kuhn Venta won't be staying as the output just wasn't good enough even with a Fendt 728 up front. The Horsch impressed and so did the contractors Lemken Solitaire 6m combi drill which provided the wished for output in sticky conditions. I suspect we will be offered more opportunities to grow our portfolio of land due to the Labour governments new inheritance tax plans for farmers, which has caused so much furore across the community. Many farmers will just look to contract out land and hope the tax issue is changed by the next administration. And as a direct result of this new law my main contractor's son has decided to go out on his own and start from scratch. He has three of Bill's 6 machine fleet in his name and will take them and an employee into his new business venture. Leaving his father with three New Hollands and one employee. To this end I will look into sourcing an additional contractor to help with operations in 2025. Every year since the turn of the millenium it seem's to get more difficult to plan for the year(s) ahead and now is no exception. Maybe a crystal ball would be a good investment. With regard to machinery we have invested in lots in 2024, two new Claas harvesters, two new Fendts and two John Deere plus plenty of kit to go behind, fortunately getting in early to the A D Plant business has proved a profitable enterprise so far and is covering investments of which no doubt more will follow in 2025. The Fendt 620 tractor we planned to buy in September has been shelved until the new year when we will re-assess our needs and indeed who we can recruit to push the team forward. Fitting the 45ft combine header in the contractors barn proved to impractical so we parked it in the grain shed. That allowed us to fit the new combine and maize harvester in the barn along with the new horsch drill. Also we picked up the second Stewart trailer from the auction house last week and immediately filled it with digestate for a local farmer.

Landini looks nice.