Following the success of the larger 4m, 4.8m and 6m Hybrid Drills (folding to 2.85m for road transport), Claydon will be releasing a 3m fixed width version of the machine at Cereals.

The Hybrid Drill Range uses the same patented two-tine technique as the V-Drill and SR-Drill; this strip tillage technique creates individual drainage for each band of seed and the ideal growing environment for the crop.

The Claydon system was developed on farm in 2002 and has been well and truly tried and tested ever since. The company has an ever growing customer base (currently around 200) using their system in the UK as well as customers across mainland Europe and eastern Europe. Claydon is considered by many farmers as the UK’s market leader in direct seeding.

The Claydon Hybrid benefits from huge trash clearance due to its staggered tine arrangement thus allowing customers to drill into large quantities of chopped straw. It also features two stone protection options; shear bolts and a hydraulic break back protection system which works at a huge 600kg force.

The machine has minimal moving and wearing parts providing farmers with the benefit of quick and easy servicing and a low cost of wearing metal compared to other machines and systems. As standard the 3m machine will use the Sulky MS seeding unit with the Ultron electronics giving +/- 10% seed rate adjustment on the move.

However, a premium option may become available which will use the electric driven Accord metering system and the same RDS Artemis system used on the larger 4-6m seed drills with radar, full mapping capabilities and +/- 5% manual seed rate adjustment on the move.

Claydon continue evolving its range and now offer customers two core products: a Straw Harrow designed not to cultivate the soil but to chit weeds ready for spraying and kill slugs with minimal soil disturbance and power requirement. And their range of Seed Drills which as mentioned before all (Hybrid, SR and V) use the same patented two-tine technique and provide a truly high yielding one-pass crop establishment method.

• Cereals 2011 exhibitor information as supplied by Claydon.