“Adding an extra 3m has been a game changer for us,” explains Scott Hall, pictured, with daughter Martha and Dom Ravenscroft, at K Hall & Son’s 1,000-acre Lower Halstead Farm near Huddersfield, Yorkshire.
With a focus on making around 1,000 round bales of high-quality silage and hay for its beef and sheep, the Halls have been putting the emphasis on being much more efficient.
Scott says the outfit is handled easily by the farm’s frontline John Deere 6250R, and with auto steering guidance, the full 8.75m working width is cut every time, often with daughter Martha at the controls.
“Grass is dropped quicker, so it has more chance to dry,” says Scott. “The steel tine conditioners get wilting off to a good start, though we always ted everything, sometimes twice. It means the mowers don’t need to leave rows that match the width of our rake.”
With a mix of field sizes and very few that are flat, Martha reckons that having a tractor that’s stable enough to handle the kit is as important as power.
“Using 250hp on just 6m was not very efficient,” says Martha. “Now when I go mowing, I can make better use of the tractor power, and despite a slower forward speed, output has now increased considerably and balance is much better when making headland turns.”
As soon as the grass is down, the focus can turn to tedding.
“Weather windows have got shorter, and more unpredictable, so we don’t need to spend days mowing, to risk the grass getting spoiled,” she says. “This is a great combination that also leaves clean stubbles, and the beds match up perfectly.”
“There is plenty of flexibility too – you can use any combination of the three beds when cutting the last bits of a field, and you don’t necessarily need big fields to make the most of a triple mower. It’s a very nimble set-up.”
