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You'd be welcome to shear my layout if your were handy. The fiats might be ageing but we'd make it grow. 8)

Would be quite something Ol, several thousand miles apart!

 

Nice update once again Alex! Is it true that the rolls are slightly smaller than the Carrier and Horsch? I didn't knew Oakley had already bought a second Lexion 780 after the 770 burned down. I still had high hopes for an Axial-Flow 9240 ;D

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Yes they are/look ever so slightly smaller, the rolls are dead 12 meters as no need for overlap, not really essential, the Horsch is 12m from outside coulter to outside coulter but the frame overlaps this making it look wider, the Carrier is .25 of a meter wider than 12 as this is the width Vaderstad make it too, very small overlap when cultivating. Oh yes insurance job saw a new 780, i would of loved to try an axial flow but no Case dealers round us now, and i don't trust the new one who has just set up!

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I think the name Crooks says it all!! Wrong direction! One big combine in Devon that Hamblys look after, us Somerset boys prefer to go North to Dorchester with dealers used to big machines, classic arable territory, not like Devon full of ruddy cows! Paul from Vaughans is absolutely spot on, we are right on the border for both dealers and i get on well with Dave Ashdown and have had 6 Claas combines from them, i wouldn't go anywhere else if your happy!

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Yes they are/look ever so slightly smaller, the rolls are dead 12 meters as no need for overlap, not really essential, the Horsch is 12m from outside coulter to outside coulter but the frame overlaps this making it look wider, the Carrier is .25 of a meter wider than 12 as this is the width Vaderstad make it too, very small overlap when cultivating. Oh yes insurance job saw a new 780, i would of loved to try an axial flow but no Case dealers round us now, and i don't trust the new one who has just set up!

Ok I see. Thanks Alex! Just sprung to mind the Carrier is a 1225 so as you say a bit of overlap.

 

Will you be drilling your forage maize for the AD plant on 12m as well? I don't know if it is possible to demount the drill from the Horsch seed cart and fit one of their precision drills? Have seen the same thing done where a Horsch trailed tank was linked to a Monosem drill.

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Ok I see. Thanks Alex! Just sprung to mind the Carrier is a 1225 so as you say a bit of overlap.

 

Will you be drilling your forage maize for the AD plant on 12m as well? I don't know if it is possible to demount the drill from the Horsch seed cart and fit one of their precision drills? Have seen the same thing done where a Horsch trailed tank was linked to a Monosem drill.

Im sure that is possible Niels but the maize is for Juilians AD plant so at the moment drilling is down to him, in an ideal world id like to have the maize and rye grown on a 6m CTF system but the land allocated for energy crops will stay the same and have its own rotation so won't affect our arable land on 12m CTF. We have worked closely together and although the AD machinery is in its early stages we have come up with some ideas on cutting compaction with trailers and a loading idea, all of which will be revealed this year sometime. I have high hopes for this operation and looking forward to developing it further with Julian
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full  of cows, you cheeky bugger :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: there's sheep to mate  honest , your right though, this way the combines are a lot smaller, and usually not new , only the contractors go new, biggest lexion I have seen is a 580 montana few t series jds around to , otherwise its well worn mf's and class dommys   

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I would of thought the chance to grow different crops on the arable land would help with the 4 crop rule you have now days plus the benefits of abit of bio diversity about the place Alex?? 2 years in grass would help the soil more than a load of muck or do you have AD crops just around the plant?

AD crops like maize make more money than barley as rule?

What grasses do AD plants like?

Thats this weeks Q & A :-[  :)  

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Im sure that is possible Niels but the maize is for Juilians AD plant so at the moment drilling is down to him, in an ideal world id like to have the maize and rye grown on a 6m CTF system but the land allocated for energy crops will stay the same and have its own rotation so won't affect our arable land on 12m CTF. We have worked closely together and although the AD machinery is in its early stages we have come up with some ideas on cutting compaction with trailers and a loading idea, all of which will be revealed this year sometime. I have high hopes for this operation and looking forward to developing it further with Julian

So if I understand correctly you will allocate fields which will only grow hybrid rye and forage maize year after year? I then come up with the same questions like Ol has. Your three crop rule etc.. Also I assume the land is contract farmed so the owner won't be overly happy with a monotone cropping?

 

I'm looking forward in seeing more. Especially on the machinery front. I think a 12m system for maize and rye could work well? 16 row drill, 16 row header, which would have to be cut by a Krone Big X 1100 as they do a 16 row header? Rest only goes up to 12 IIRC. Just wondering if the spout would reach out long enough to blow the crop into the side running trailer. A Big M 500 or Claas Cougar could mow 12m. There are quite some farms and contractors in Denmark that run CTF systems in maize and grass.

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full  of cows, you cheeky bugger :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: there's sheep to mate  honest , your right though, this way the combines are a lot smaller, and usually not new , only the contractors go new, biggest lexion I have seen is a 580 montana few t series jds around to , otherwise its well worn mf's and class dommys

Couldn't agree more chaps, we stick out like a sore thumb in our area so when it comes to dealer back up we chose Vaughans, half hour from us in East direction is Dorchester, big arable land down there including a Velcourt farm and a former Co Op farm, then half hour up the 303 your on the Wiltshire border heading towards Salisbury Plain, get Wincanton out the way and it really opens out.

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I would of thought the chance to grow different crops on the arable land would help with the 4 crop rule you have now days plus the benefits of abit of bio diversity about the place Alex?? 2 years in grass would help the soil more than a load of muck or do you have AD crops just around the plant?

AD crops like maize make more money than barley as rule?

What grasses do AD plants like?

Thats this weeks Q & A :-[  :)

  

So if I understand correctly you will allocate fields which will only grow hybrid rye and forage maize year after year? I then come up with the same questions like Ol has. Your three crop rule etc.. Also I assume the land is contract farmed so the owner won't be overly happy with a monotone cropping?

 

I'm looking forward in seeing more. Especially on the machinery front. I think a 12m system for maize and rye could work well? 16 row drill, 16 row header, which would have to be cut by a Krone Big X 1100 as they do a 16 row header? Rest only goes up to 12 IIRC. Just wondering if the spout would reach out long enough to blow the crop into the side running trailer. A Big M 500 or Claas Cougar could mow 12m. There are quite some farms and contractors in Denmark that run CTF systems in maize and grass.

I have to agree with you there Ol about grass doing the soil some good, with the 3 crop rule we are satisfying that along with the arable crops and at the mo energy crops are making more money than cereals which is a sad situation. I would love to be able to have a rotation thst includes grasses, rye, peas etc but and here are my reasons as to why the land allocated for AD crops will stay separate to the arable, with so much tine and money invested in CTF it has to be run strictly to reap the benefits, between Julian and myself we are currently unable to run the foraging side of things on a CTF system as its early days in the agreement and having taken 2 years to get it right on the arable side this would also take time to get right, i would really love to get the whole lot onto CTF and make use of a full rotation but i simply cannot have all the hard work messed up by a year of silage trailers all over the place undoing the natural processes. I am up for up for it and like a challenge so research will be carried out on the subject and made into a future plan, it would be difficult from a model point of view but not impossible with a lot of expensive custom builds, so again something for the future, so at the mo it shall stay separate. Regarding the contract farming land and three crop rule, each farm will have 75% area of arable i.e wheat, rape or beans and the rest will be split up into grass, rye, fodder beet and maize for ad, all rotated around the 25% satisying the 3 crop rule easy, keeping this simple for the arable operation and suits Juilian who is after the land for energy crops, at the moment where ever i take on a new customer julian has 25% land area to set up a rotation of enery criops on, small areas but the best for all parties and the type of business's run, the farmer is also happy with a mix to crops ticking all the boxes, seems to be working well. Problems would occur if Julian pulled out as id then have to grown 3 aeable crops on each farm and travel there 3 times with drill, 3 times with combine etc, expensive and time consuming and this ways stops all of that.

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Interesting Alex,thanks for the reply. 

Thinking out loud.... use 1/2 width ctf for the the years in grass? easier to handle kit wise and grass stands up to traffic better than other crops and after the grass is out keep using the old full width ctf lines for straw crops. The soil would soon pop up again with the grass roots and no traffic going over it may also be a chance to get lime on before a return to straw crops with it being such a pig to spread. If energy crops make more money the blip in the perfect ctf system by a few years in grass/energy would no doubt make more money than the cereal crops growing on the best conditions. Just what popped into my head ::)

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Very true, like it! Perhaps a chance to direct drill grass seed into stubble in the autumn, what do you think? I would like to experiment with direct drilling into cover crops etc. the only trouble is i cannot afford to run a forage gang or have enough time snd staff so it would very much be a joint venture and decisions would very much depend on Julian.

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Have you looked at the economics of grass as a feedstock for an AD plant?

 

I know it is something that is done on the Continent, possibly in areas unsuited to maize, but I've never looked at the numbers.

 

It strikes me that it could be economic as a low-input, low-output system, especially if the grass mix was providing other benefits, such as a lot of clover in the mix fixing nitrogen in the soil, and some grasses with aggressive root structures digging down into the soil opening it up.

 

To make it work in CTF would mean using a 12 metre windrower, and either a silage wagon or a self propelled harvester pulling a trailer in-line along the CTF pathways.

 

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I havnt posted in a while but found the hiab debate interesting in newzealand thoose little 3m hiabs are almost standard especially on the newzealand made allen custom drills the cranes are used to unload from curtain aide lorrys left in the fields works well one block the company i work for is drilling is 4500hectares so thy get a lot of use over there

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