Manor Farmyard

[phil phoenix]

Hi Joe, yeah it was too big & old really. They stopped making them in 2003 whereas the 716s and 820s were built into 2012/3, so more realistic to have the newer builds as handy tractors.

[phil phoenix]

Busy season is almost upon us and the farm is ready for the challenges ahead, the new Lexion 6900 gets it PDI monday from the team from Manns and our first rapeseed should be fit to cut by the end of next week.  Weve hooked up one of the Pumas to do the carting and the other 175 will be on standby for the start of wheat harvest the week after when two trailers are required.

Our friends over at PHR in Essex tracked down a superbly conditioned Fendt 820 with only 6000 hours on the clock. It received a damn good polish and resprayed red rims and almost looks new.  Its already on the fleet alongside our Gen 3   716 and will do mostly odd jobs, yard work and fetch and carry.  Its sat on the front of the Claas cutterbar trailer now and will remain there for most of harvest. The 716 will be on bale hauling for a while until our 720 has finished its spring/ summer spraying commitments in a week or two.  The new 724 arrived last week and went straight on the round baler doing hay before going into some wheat fields.

The 936 has been hooked up to our Claas big baler for the next couple of months instead of the JD 6250R which did a good job last year. The 936s superior speed between jobs on the road will increase efficiency.  The 6250 has switched onto the Amazone big sprayer whilst the maize rapidly grows and our 6215 has dropped onto the digestate sprayer for a couple more weeks.

We are still a tractor short when the pressure is really on and I will be considering my options in the 200hp plus catagory. Both TNS and Doubledays have some decent 2nd hand stock and Im told their might be an ex demo tractor or two available soon as new 2021 models are due in soon. 

[phil phoenix]

Well harvest is virtually over and what a roller coaster it has been.  We started on August 1st which was two weeks later than usual and for a week everything went fine with the new Lexion 6900 performing above my expectations and our 2000 acre target looking within reach by months end. Then our neighbours harvester went up in flames, leaving him with 500 acres to cut and no readily available machine to replace it. Old George is past retirement age and was looking to do one last harvest next year and then contract out the farm to my estate, so he immediately bought his plans forward leaving us with the extra 500 acres to cut in a shortening window! Then came the cool damp weather as the crop all came fit at once. We couldnt kick on in the dull conditions as loses became unacceptable, it was clear a second machine would have to be called in, but when we rang around everyone else had done the same and nothing reasonable was left. But then came good ole Claas to the rescue, they offered to lend us one of their demo machines, an 8700 fitted with a vast convio header! Two days later we were starting too catch up and I realized this was the perfect harvester for us.  As our 6900 was virtually new it could be used as a demo machine and after some arm twisting we came to a deal. Claas took the 8700 machine away for 4 days to complete outstanding demonstrations and then bought it back and took away the 6900. We have now almost completed 1500 acres with it in 2 1/2 weeks and the header is just awesome.

We drilled the rapeseed in mid August with our Fendt 724 which then switched onto baling duties, relieving our new 936 for its cultivation duties, firstly some ploughing before its hooked to the Kockerling Vector.  The 720 has been hauling bales along with our back up 820 tractor.  Our JD 6250R has been busy with multiple tasks and is never found short on power unlike the smaller 6215R which has struggled a little in comparison. With this in mind when we were offered Doubledays demo tractor recently I quickly accepted. The second 6250R will arrive shortly after its final demonstration at Normac 2021.  Our CASE 175 has spent all summer on the grain trailer and will shortly be on a maize trailer. The Fendt 720 is going onto the drill next and then a maize trailer as we have bought another ex demo tractor to replace it on the sprayer.  I have admired the Valtra T tractor from afar for a while now and when I enquired what machines Thurlow Nunn had for sale and immediately available, the 6 month Valtra T234 was offered.  Many of the main tractor makers are experiencing big problems with their suppliers presently and the back logs and delivery delays this has caused is sending secondhand values way up! So we bought the Valtra and have sat it on our sprayer taking the role occupied by the Fendt 720 which will now be used wherever needed.  There is still a new maize trailer and a Bednar cultivator due to arrive but I suspect the cheque book will then have to be closed for a good while.

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Edited September 8, 2021 by phil phoenix

[phil phoenix]

Lexion 8700 cleaned off after harvest and the Jaguar 980 and two of our maize rigs on their way out too work a few weeks ago.

 

[phil phoenix]

Our new ex demo JD6250R joins our existing machine.

 

[phil phoenix]

The new 6250R sporting its new toolbox bumper😎

[phil phoenix]

Our much delayed Rolland trailer finally arrived on the farm just as the maize season is coming to a close.  But with quite a few poly tunnels used in fields more than 20 miles from our AD Plant there will be plenty of haulage required in the new year. We used to have a couple of yellow Rolland Turbo trailers in the early 90s so decided to go yellow again this time too.

Our 980 Jaguar has benefited from six weeks of good weather and roared through approx 3000 acres with a couple of days left too we finish.

Our main contractor has been helping out too, Bill Legge and his team provided their recently purchased ex demo Massey 8740S on the pit which replaced his old JD 7290. The extra horsepower supplied by the big MF along with its Fendt Vario gearbox has kept it boss of the job as the trailers keep dumping the maize. He also brought along a hired in MF7726S which he is considering adding to his fleet if TNS sharpen their pencil enough. We put this tractor on the new Rolland trailer for the last days of harvest. And seeing as we also deal quite a bit with the big local Agco dealer we were as interested as Bill when They sent us the new MF8S 265 to try😎.  Still not sure about the look of it but theres no denying its a big step forward technically and mechanically and a nice place for a driver to spend the day. We hitched it up to one of the hired in trailers and all had a good go in her with a general thumbs up.

We still are trying to get a bit more land drilled with the Fendt 724 on the Horsch Pronto and our Fendt 936 has been working the fields down with the Kockerling cultivator up ahead, which in turn is following one of our JD 6250Rs  on the Joskin Digestate tanker spreading its loads.

 

Edited November 7, 2021 by phil phoenix

[phil phoenix]

Well as we are now in the middle of winter you would think it was quiet down on the farm, but not a bit of it.  We appear to be in a phase of constant expansion as neighbouring farms look to grow maize or put land out to contract.  We have over 3000 acres of maize to plant again plus a new 500 acre Miscanthus project to start harvest on shortly. The former contractor decided to call it a day, and as we are known to them and the farms its grown on, we were asked if we were interested. The target is to harvest it by April just as our spring planting time begins.   We also have more cereals too harvest this year up from 2000+ to nearly 2500 acres of Wheat, Barley and Rapeseed.

The machinery side of the business has seen a few changes already in 2022 after many in 2021.  We finished last year with two JDs, three Fendts a Valtra T & a CASE Puma as our frontline tractors, plus two older Fendts for runabout and hedge cutting duties. A Lex 8700 and Jaguar 980 completed the line up. We also called upon contractors to assist us throughout the season.   But this year we have immediately changed tact and frankly we have had to, what with the increasing difficulty in finding good staff. So I made the decision to increase the size and power of our fleet without adding more numbers to it.  After a very successful demo of the new John Deere 8R machines I decided to place an order for the flagship 410hp machine 8R.410. I must say the E23 transmission seemed to get the power down to the ground more impressively than the vario Fendt 942. And the new tractors operator also happens to be a JD man and currently drives one of our JD 6250Rs, so he was also pleased with my choice.  The big JD replaces the CASE Puma175 and it also brought about an exodus of implements,  out went the 8 row Amazone drill, the 4 metre Horsch Pronto plus a 5f Lemken plough and a 12 ton AH muck spreader.  In came a huge Fliegl 20 ton plus Muck spreader in December plus a newly arrived Vaderstad 16 row Tempo drill last week. A new 7f mounted Lemken plough is waiting on delivery and also a shop soiled Lemken Solitaire 6metre combination drill is due soon.  The plan is for the big John Deere to handle the bulk of cultivations and drilling, whilst our Fendt 936 will use its greater flexibility on the slurry tanker, giant Amazon sprayer, Fliegl spreader and on the Holaras push blade in the maize pit as well this year.

Our two Fendt 700s and JD 6Rs will handle everything else and muck in with the bigger tractors where required. Whilst the Valtra T234 is permanently hitched to  spraying duties.  The only other forseen change will likely be a Kemper 12 row header for our 980 Jag to help increase work rates in maize and miscanthus later this year.  We also have a Bailey Grain trailer on order for the spring from the Deere dealers.

 

[phil phoenix]

Our two muck spreaders parked up and ready for work whilst our Fendt 936 gets ready to go and dribble some digestate on the land.

The new John Deere 8.410 is due on March the 1st on a 22 Reg plate.

 

[phil phoenix]

The busy planting season is now upon us and we are pleased to have finished our spring wheat drilling quickly, with the final 400 acres getting drilled over 5 dry days last week.  Thankfully we had fertilizer stored from last year to help our crops in the first quarter of this year , and we also benefited from being able to use  our own digestate from the A.D plant on our cereals land.

We have signed up a new contractor who will be helping us throughout the year with various tasks. Lee Brothers have already had plenty of experience with spraying and haulage work. They will be using a pair of 180hp tractors to assist us, namely a newish Claas 650 Arion and an older New Holland T7.225.  As Ive mentioned before getting reliable quality staff is becoming more difficult so these two young men helping us is very welcome.

On the machinery side we have just received our new prime mover, a John Deere 8R.410 which has been immediately hooked up to our Kockerling cultivator  and will be working down land behind our muck spreading team of the Fendt 936 & one of the JD 6250Rs.  We have been busy ferrying digestate from plant to fields with a JD and a Fendt 720.  We did consider using artics but it saves time to put the digestate directly into the field using tractors and then load the spreaders from there.

We continue to ferry maize from our various poly tunnels back to the A.D plant using tractors and articulated lorries and am also busy with the tanker and dribble bar on land destined for maize.  For this task I was persuaded to bring one more tractor in, and after deciding on a compact but big machine in the 280hp power bracket would best cope with all conditions, I looked around our main dealers for a good deal. JD were quoting a 6 month lead time due to disruptive strikes at they're Waterloo factory pushing delivery times well back. Fendt 828 still holds much appeal but in the end our favourite dealer Manns of Saxham won the business with a very tidy ex demo Axion 870.  At 280hp it fitted the bill perfectly and also impressed us with its latest technology and comfortable ride.  These Axions have been around for nearly a decade now and Claas have continuously improved them into a very competitive machine. And what with our new contractor also running a claas machine it will be very interesting to see how they fare against our mainly Fendt & Deere fleet.  Next month will see us rig the big new JD up with our humongous Vaderstad maize drill as we aim to get over 3000 acres drilled in around 6 weeks so its all systems go.

The Claas Jaguar will be going Miscanthus harvesting in a couple of weeks once I can spare a few tractor trailers to haul from it. Hopefully if the weather behaves we can get that cut in a week. Hers some pics from the yard.

 

[phil phoenix]

Digestate loading with the JCB.

 

[Paul Palmer]

16 hours ago, phil phoenix said:

Digestate loading with the JCB.

 

Looking very good Phil

[phil phoenix]

April has arrived along with the mad season, all our machines are busy and once more I know we are shorthanded as the business expands.  These past two weeks we have been loading digestate out onto many fields, then following behind with the muck spreader gang, whilst our tanker team spreads the A.D slurry. And in the middle of this we find time and machines to drill spring wheat, spread fertilizer and cultivate behind the spreading teams.  Not too mention five hectic days harvesting 200 acres plus of miscanthus.  Tomorrow see's the beginning of the six weeks minimum of maize drilling.  This year we have moved to a 16 row Vaderstad that takes a bit of pulling and needs a big tractor up front with a wide footprint, enter the new John Deere 8R.410.  She had been working our Kockerling cultivator these past 3 weeks and handed that duty over to the big Fendt 936.  The spreading teams have gotten well ahead of the drill but will keep piling it on for most of April now.  Our two Fendt 700 tractors are concentrating on bringing maize back to the farm from the various poly tunnels we put down last autumn.

Our two new owner driver contractors Lee Brothers are settling in well, helping out with haulage work with their Claas Arion650 and spraying duties with the New Holland T7.

A couple of area's of concern have arisen over the past month, the first being the standard of dealer promptness to deal with issues and breakdowns. Given the amount of money ive spent in the last three years only the Claas dealer has maintained high standards of service, hence the purchase of our new Axion870 recently. I had pointed out my annoyance to the other green dealers but still its below par. So given that we clearly need another haulage tractor of 200 hp plus Im taking references from colleagues using other dealers to see who else we could give a bit of business too, watch this space.

The other concern is the price of fertilizer which is getting ridiculous and although we have a ready supply of digestate to use for ourselves, we still need fertilizer!  No one know's where this will all end but I suspect its no where good.  In the meantime im getting plenty of enquiries for our by products and suspect our tanker team will be busy all year, which is why we need to add a compact field side slurry tanker that can be aimed at the many smaller fields we have to service, hence the need for another tractor.

Edited June 26, 2022 by phil phoenix

[phil phoenix]

Maize drilling is in full operation currently with our new JD 8R & 16 Row Vaddy drill performing as expected.  We are well on target to get 3000+ acres drilled by mid may.  Digestate solids and liquids are being applied to fields still to be drilled and also we are receiving more enquiries from other farmers interested in using these products on their land as fertilizer prices continue to head into orbit!!  We recently have added another smaller tanker, an NC unit with fieldside spec, this  will be targeted at some of the many smaller fields nearer to our base.  We also have a contractor using an umbilical system operating on two of our largest fields presently. They claim it to be a more soil friendly way of applying slurry on a large scale instead of trying to support a very heavy triple axle tanker set up. A haulage contractor is supplying the lorry tanker fleet to keep the umbilical guys moving by filling their onsite nurse tank up.

Cereal crops are progressing well in the mostly warm weather of late and our spraying contractor is doing a decent job and giving me one less thing to worry about during these unprecedented times.

Recently I had complained that servicing of machinery breakdowns could be quicker by two of our larger dealers and that led me to consider bringing in some more competition dealer wise. And Im glad I decided to canvass local opinion on other services as they pointed me to a Cambridgeshire Deutz dealer C.Brothers. These people had lost their CASE franchise but were now thriving selling the german marques machines, which I for one had underated for years. C.Brothers turned up on farm with a very smart black 200hp+ vario tractor capable of 60kmh and fitted with powerful disc brakes. Its road performance was at least equal to our Fendt 700s and its unique launch control was exceptional when looking to enter traffic from side roads safely.  It also has the customary german fit and finish which was impressive, I think pound for pound the Deutz tractor is a match for our similar sized Fendts, which actually use the Deutz engines themselves. They are less expensive than a Fendt as well and as we need another machine in the 220-280hp category I have asked them to come back with a larger tractor to test on our bigger kit, so that I can fully evaluate them.

 

 

[phil phoenix]

Well the maize drilling is progressing without hitch and we are 80% done and should finish within 10 days.  Everywhere else its all systems go.  We are receiving more calls from farmers looking for an alternative to fertilizer given the ridiculously high prices currently and Im having to consider more investments to cope with the demands.

Currently under evaluation is a Self propelled sprayer to keep on top of things as our trailed Lemken is struggling to cope as the acreage increases. A visit to Cereals and Sprayers in June should help me finalize a decision.

The recent demonstration's by Deutz and New Holland both went very well and that news certainly reached our local Fendt agent who was quick to pay us a visit!  To cut a long story short some improvements were made to our service contracts with them and first refusal on an absolute minter of an 828!!  5 years old with just over 3000 hours on the clock and a new engine fitted 500 hours ago which has a nice warranty on it. It was too good to turn down at the price and a quick solution to our need for additional power.  We now have 5 Fendts on our main farm with an old 716 now positioned on our furthest outpost for convenience.  

[phil phoenix]

We are in the pre harvest lull now and although there is always digestate management to attend to most of the attention is on preparation for the silly season to begin! On friday we pulled the Lexion 8700 out of the shed and readied her for the Claas service man to inspect, we also brought our Quadrant baler down for a check over as well. And while he was here he rectified a software glitch on our big Axion 870 which has performed very well on the Joskin tanker since it arrived. It will be pairing up with the baler as soon as the barley harvest starts on neighbouring farms, as we dont grow any of our own. Work is well underway on a straw mixing facility which will allow us to add it to our digestate solids and create a decent option to traditional fertilizers which are now stupidly expensive!  Im currently looking into bringing in another big baler so that we can maximise the amount of straw bales available to us for the new enterprise.

After yet another niggling breakdown of our older JD6250R which has covered over 4500 hours in 3 years, I decided to sell her before something bigger went wrong. Our newer 6250 has done 1500 hours already without missing a beat!!  I think we are well covered for now in the 250-300hp range of tractors so I wont be rushing into any hasty decisions.

One new arrival on the enterprise is due this week to our young contractors Lee Brothers, who currently have their own New Holland T7.225 on our Lemken Sprayer. Their second tractor was a Claas Arion 650 which completed its 3 year lease 2 weeks ago. They could have bought it or started a fresh lease with a new model, but instead  they opted to change brand, such was the impression that Collings Brothers and their black Deutz Warrior made on them during the recent demonstration held on the farm.  I must admit we were seriously considering one ourselves until Fendt upped their game and servicing.  The 6215 Warrior is a fair increase in power for them but not much bigger or heavier than the 180hp machines they currently run, and it should arrive by wednesday.

 

[Oakley Farms]

Lovely combine 

[phil phoenix]

Yes Alex, Im very pleased with it and glad I changed the idler and track assembly as well. It now looks exactly like the ones around here.

[phil phoenix]

Well due to the need to get more straw bales stacked for our forthcoming digestate /straw mix fertilizer venture, I have this week sourced a second big baler. Fortunately at late notice our friends at Collings Bros have found a decent 5 year old Kuhn 1290 machine. Its all in good order and we picked it up on June 30th, now we are ready for early bailing of our neighbour's barley straw next week.  The Claas 3300 is paired with the Axion 870 and the Kuhn will be pulled by our JD 6250R.

 

 

[Oakley Farms]

2 hours ago, phil phoenix said:

Yes Alex, Im very pleased with it and glad I changed the idler and track assembly as well. It now looks exactly like the ones around here.

Did the same to mine, makes a massive difference doesn’t it. Far far better

[smithy]

9 hours ago, phil phoenix said:

Well due to the need to get more straw bales stacked for our forthcoming digestate /straw mix fertilizer venture, I have this week sourced a second big baler. Fortunately at late notice our friends at Collings Bros have found a decent 5 year old Kuhn 1290 machine. Its all in good order and we picked it up on June 30th, now we are ready for early bailing of our neighbour's barley straw next week.  The Claas 3300 is paired with the Axion 870 and the Kuhn will be pulled by our JD 6250R.

 

 

Baler looks good Phil ,i have had a few deals with Collins over the last few months they seem to be a good company allow the sales-man i have been dealing with has just left and gone to work for TNS

[phil phoenix]

No loyalty in this day and age Smithy, you go to the highest bidder.  Theyve shifted well over 40 Deutz tractors in 18+ months in territory crawling with the big boys, so they must have a good sales team.  Also farmers get peed off with the bigger dealers, especially JD because they have too much business and cater for their biggest customers first.  That plays into the hands of decent smaller dealers if they have good staff. Claas are generally accepted as the best dealers in the industry because they treat all customers the same, whilst still having lots of them big & small.

We got rid of one of our JD 6250Rs off the carpet farm due to poor maintenance, its wheels kept falling off so I had to sell it😁

Edited July 6, 2022 by phil phoenix

[phil phoenix]

A quick update as harvest gets ever closer. Wheat's are turning gold now and we are likely to hold off until the last week of July before we start them.  The rapeseed is probably a week away now and looking very good too, prices have gone through the roof since last year and it will certainly help finance various projects we are working on. Once again we will look to have all rape drilled by the end of August.

Our two baler rigs have already begun harvest 22 and have been busy in our neighbour's barley fields. We have managed to get a few more contracts on local farms to handle their baling requirements in return for them being first to get our digestate & straw fertilizer alternative early next year.

On the machinery front we are still awaiting delivery of a Bailey grain trailer which was due in May but due to supply issues every manufacturer is now affected. We hope to see it by the end of the month as we currently only have one trailer available for the coming rapeseed harvest.

On the tractor front we recently sold one one of our JD 6250Rs and have been pondering what to buy next. I remember two years or so ago buying our Fendt 936 and thinking it was probably to big for us, then once we saw the benefits of extra HP and extra workloads it could cope with we decided to buy another big one, that was the JD8R.410. And now I'm considering that a third high HP heavyweight would be beneficial, after all we are getting increasing interest in all of our digestate produce which will likely get even more crazy as oil prices keep pushing traditional fertilizer prices out the reach of many farmers. Also more land keeps coming available and we need powerful kit to take it in hand without needing to add more labor. Both our Fendt 936 & big JD are very comfortable hauling on the open roads and offer us the option of pulling bigger trailers, tankers and muck spreaders. There is one catch though presently, SUPPLY.  Our Fendt dealer is fresh out of 900s having bought 6 into stock (936/942's) back in March! They have a couple of new demo units but they wont part with those until next year. As for JD they are out as well, the big strike at Waterloo factory last year has put them back 6 months and we wont get one until next year either. We are victims of our own success and didn't react fast enough and buy another big bugger when we could see things might go ballistic with fertilizer.

Our other most valued dealer Manns have taken my inquiry about availability of a 900 series Claas Axion machine and are going to come back once they've assessed stock and demo units for the coming summer. Our 870 Axion has impressed us so far and stepping up a model or two can now be done with confidence.

 

 

 

 

[NIGEL FORD]

On 7/11/2022 at 9:58 PM, phil phoenix said:

A quick update as harvest gets ever closer. Wheat's are turning gold now and we are likely to hold off until the last week of July before we start them.  The rapeseed is probably a week away now and looking very good too, prices have gone through the roof since last year and it will certainly help finance various projects we are working on. Once again we will look to have all rape drilled by the end of August.

Our two baler rigs have already begun harvest 22 and have been busy in our neighbour's barley fields. We have managed to get a few more contracts on local farms to handle their baling requirements in return for them being first to get our digestate & straw fertilizer alternative early next year.

On the machinery front we are still awaiting delivery of a Bailey grain trailer which was due in May but due to supply issues every manufacturer is now affected. We hope to see it by the end of the month as we currently only have one trailer available for the coming rapeseed harvest.

On the tractor front we recently sold one one of our JD 6250Rs and have been pondering what to buy next. I remember two years or so ago buying our Fendt 936 and thinking it was probably to big for us, then once we saw the benefits of extra HP and extra workloads it could cope with we decided to buy another big one, that was the JD8R.410. And now I'm considering that a third high HP heavyweight would be beneficial, after all we are getting increasing interest in all of our digestate produce which will likely get even more crazy as oil prices keep pushing traditional fertilizer prices out the reach of many farmers. Also more land keeps coming available and we need powerful kit to take it in hand without needing to add more labor. Both our Fendt 936 & big JD are very comfortable hauling on the open roads and offer us the option of pulling bigger trailers, tankers and muck spreaders. There is one catch though presently, SUPPLY.  Our Fendt dealer is fresh out of 900s having bought 6 into stock (936/942's) back in March! They have a couple of new demo units but they wont part with those until next year. As for JD they are out as well, the big strike at Waterloo factory last year has put them back 6 months and we wont get one until next year either. We are victims of our own success and didn't react fast enough and buy another big bugger when we could see things might go ballistic with fertilizer.

Our other most valued dealer Manns have taken my inquiry about availability of a 900 series Claas Axion machine and are going to come back once they've assessed stock and demo units for the coming summer. Our 870 Axion has impressed us so far and stepping up a model or two can now be done with confidence.

 

 

 

 

Hope to visit Manns next week, we had CLAAS combines for 40 years until we sold up in ' 99 and never got to go there, always dealing with Haynes or Sussex tractors for new parts and Peter Burden for s/h parts I took out of his Isle of Sheppey graveyard. Do they still have the SF silver combine on display as Dad had a new bagger in the early 60's?

[phil phoenix]

I dont know about the old silver combine Nigel, but theres some very nice machines on the site so Im sure you will have a good visit🙂