“We had always bought high-quality, branded fertiliser but our ageing machine clearly wasn’t doing as good a job as we thought on 24m tramlines,” explains Ed Williams, pictured, of Rhadyr Farm, Usk, South Wales. “While yield variation wasn’t visible, the combine’s yield monitor recorded it all, and we were missing out.”
The 750-acre family farm run by Ed and his brothers Andrew and Owain grows around 200 acres of cereals, 100 acres of maize and 450 acres of grass. With the exception of milling wheat, all produce is consumed by the farm’s beef and sheep enterprises, and its 200-head dairy herd and followers.
“Several farmers I know, including my contractor Stan Evans, do use and had recommended, Kverneland’s GEOSPREAD spreader, so I had to take a closer look,” he adds. “This was going to be my first ISOBUS machine, so I needed to be confident that my tractors had compatibility.”
He says local dealer Hopkins Machinery brought an ISOBUS demo plug to show how the spreader would operate through his John Deere 6155R’s terminal, and the deal was done. Mr Williams opted for an Exacta TL GEOSPREAD with three hopper extensions, twin steps and auto start/stop with section control.
“Fertiliser spreading is now so much easier and much more accurate, with no overlaps,” he says. “And where we’ve had a few wet areas this spring, I’ve also spread across tramlines to reach into those wet areas, letting the technology do the work for me.”
He says spreading on grass leys without tramlines is also more accurate too.
“There’s never any fertiliser left over in the hopper, it all goes on exactly where it should,” says Ed. “And with the shaker box and spreading charts, I’ve much more confidence in spreading any type of fertiliser. I’m looking forward to seeing yield data at harvest, to find out how much we’ve improved our spreading accuracy.”
Want to speak to a specialist?
E-Mail Simon Wills, Kverneland Crop Care specialist: info-uksales@kvernelandgroup.com
