James English runs a big tillage enterprise at Ballytrehy, Ballylooby, near Cahir in Co Tipperary. To day the farm is totally in cereals –approx half in winter barley and another 500 acres in winter wheat. In addition he manages to find the time to get in around 100 acres of spring corn plus another 300 or so for neighbours. All in all, we do somewhere around the 1600 acres on average.
To get through this acreage, James needs to have the right equipment. His primary tillage tool is by choice a Kverneland trailed PG 7 Furrow plough. He has just traded in his five year old PG plough which was a six furrow machine with No 8 bodies. He had a demonstration of the No. 28 wide bodies last year and decided to go that route in 2012 and to move up to a seven furrow as well.
The PG version is well constructed with the rear wheel a little past midway down the beam. This gives me nice “ins and outs” says James and I get nice tidy headlands.
“I liked the wide furrow left by the No 28” says James. “Most of my tractors have wide profile tyres and this new body type prevents the furrow walls being collapsed by the tractor tyres. We need to get over work quickly in the autumn—this combination of the CNH 7060 with around 250 HP plus the seven furrows is just the right mix. I’ve fitted thrash boards this time instead of the more conventional skimmers I had last time. We are just starting off to day with the new plough –getting the boards polished and cleaned. The main differences in the plough from my previous model are in the bigger beefier wheel and its carrying frame. We modified the last one—it’s a heavy plough if you have to travel on the roads at speed”.
“I’m delighted to have John Colgan down to set her up” said James. “John did the demo last harvest and that really made the decision for me to invest”.
We plough, press and till with a wide 5.4 metre Simba and currently sow with a four metre Horsch Drill. For harvesting we use a New Holland 8090 Combine with a 25ft header.
We bought the new plough from M & S Machinery in Cashel and we have to day a fleet of CNH Tractors all from M & S. They are close to us and offer good service if we have any problems.
