With many farmers hoping to use income from better crop prices to replace ageing tillage equipment this year, all eyes are on new launches at this year’s Tillage 2007 events. These take place at Abingdon, Oxfordshire on 13 September and Darrington, North Yorks on 18 September. 

Amazone will be launching an updated range of Centaur trailed combination tine and disc cultivators. These divide into Special models for standard applications and Super models for tougher applications like heavier soils or lots of surface trash. 

Both are available in 3m rigid form or 4m and 5m folding versions. The Specials have three staggered sets of tines at 250mm spacing while the Super models have four staggered sets at 200mm spacing.

All models have a sprung-loaded rigid tine system instead of the conventional pigtail tines on the old models. These are said to be better at keeping the tine at its correct working depth, which is up to 25cm.

However in stony conditions there is tine protection in all three planes – a spring-back position if back pressure exceeds 500kg, up to 20cm of sideways meovement and a breakback system to increase ground clearance.

There is a choice of shares for the tines, all easy and quick to change. The Special range has a single row of levelling discs while the Super has sprung-mounted cultivation discs.

And whereas the transport wheels and packer system used to be separate, they have now been combined in one unit to reduce overall length. Prices start at £22,190.

Want to know how to get there, what it costs to get in and who’s exhibiting?