A Testimonial From Mr Michael Schweir
“Last June we visited Claydons farm to view their new drill and see the crops they had established with it. We were so impressed with the Rape, Wheat and Bean crops they had grown that we ordered a 4.8m drill. In fact, we were so convinced of its potential that we sold most of our cultivation equipment to fund it.
The cost savings have been massive! We only used 2 tanks of fuel to drill 300acres of wheat. After drilling the field it looked as though it had been ploughed and power harrowed.
The main advantages to us were a huge reduction in man hours and working equipment, greatly reduced seed rate, no pre-germination slug damage, reduced soil damage and much firmer tramlines. We found our biggest improvements came on our most difficult soils! |
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We tried drilling rape in both 300mm (12”) and 600mm (24”) row widths. The wider row widths halved the wear, needed less power to pull, but has had little effect on the crop densities. Because each row is in a 180mm band the space between the plants is only 430mm.
We saved on seed by using only 3Kg/Ha on rape (halving our seed rate), 125Kg/Ha for Malacca, and 94Kg/Ha for Xi19, this has not made any of our crops look thin. Four hectares of rape came full of Charlock, so we sprayed it off in February and re-drilled it with beans. The whole operation took just over an hour. FANTASTIC! It has opened a whole new window to spring crop establishment for us!
Our entire farm was drilled with the Claydon Drill. The crops are looking so good that when our neighbour walked the fields with us he went home and ordered a new Claydon Drill the same day. |
