There are farms that would be chuffed to drill 20ha in a day, but since the arrival of an 18m Horsch Avatar, Hertfordshire outfit AT Bone can see off such an area in an hour.

The hulking 18.25SD is the first of its kind to be sold in the UK, and one of just a handful in Europe, with 72 heavy-duty disc coulters lined along its folding toolbar.

See also: How mobile sampling lab helped farm slash rejected grain costs

Capable of speeds approaching 13kph on cultivated ground, it allows operations manager James Ashley to achieve daily outputs of 150ha or more, without having to put in ridiculous hours.

It would be reasonable to assume that efficiency plummets when it comes to ferrying such a tool between blocks of land.

© James Andrews

However, Horsch has cleverly engineered the folding mechanism so that the process can be completed in just a couple of minutes.

At the press of a button, hydraulic rams tilt the distribution heads before the 9m wings roll forwards and tuck themselves neatly along the sides of the seed cart, just like a sprayer.

This condenses it into a 3m wide, 4m high and 9.68m long package that can be towed easily around AT Bone & Sons’ farming area, which extends up to 35 miles from its base near Hertford.

Versatile option

Prior to the Avatar’s arrival, sowing was carried out using a pair of 8m Vaderstad Rapids and a 12m Amazone Condor tine drill.

It had been a solid setup for years. However, one of the Rapids was getting long in the tooth and, having taken on an extra 800ha – upping the arable area to 4,000ha, plus 400ha of SFI – more capacity was required.

James and directors Russell and Daniel Bone were keen to go wider and had been impressed with the versatility of a neighbour’s 12m Avatar.

© James Andrews

“It’s designed to be a no-till drill, but it works just as well on lightly cultivated soils or ploughed ground, and we do a bit of everything here,” says James.

When they got wind that Horsch had recently introduced an 18m model that would work in the UK – US-style MD versions sit at 4.8m on the road – their interest was piqued.

A trip to see a prototype working at Horsch’s HQ near Schwandorf, Germany, sealed the deal and they took delivery of one of the first production models earlier this season.

Pulling power

Despite its prodigious width and circa 15t unladen weight, the low-disturbance discs make it surprisingly easy to pull.

As a result, the farm’s 458hp John Deere 8RX 410 is well on top of the job, only feeling the heat on sustained uphill pulls or working in particularly heavy ground.

“It’s always nice to have more power, but the 8RX is well suited to the job and is manoeuvrable enough that I can swing straight into the next run on a 36m headland,” says James.

© James Andrews

“The inside wing wheel can dig a slight hole on cultivated ground, but it’s barely noticeable once the headland has been drilled, particularly if we roll it.”

On the road, the tractor tops out at 40kph, although James tends to run around at 30kph to prevent heating up the track units and causing excessive wear.

Despite the drill’s size and weight, much of which is up high in the coulter bars, it’s well balanced and barrels along smoothly, he says.

Working conditions

After its arrival, first on the Avatar’s agenda was direct drilling forage rye and oilseed rape, before tackling the wheat and barley ground.

As a general rule, stubbles are sprayed off after the first weed and volunteer flush, before a running through with a 6m Kockerling Vector towed by a John Deere 8RX 370, or a 12m Horsch Cruiser pulled by a 9RX 590.

Depending on conditions, soils are either lightly scuffled or lifted to depths of 300mm. Although 130-150mm is more common.

Any greenery that rears its head after this cultivation work is clobbered by another dose of glyphosate before the drills roll in.

© James Andrews

All that’s required to convert the Avatar from direct to non-direct drilling is to lighten the coulters; a task that requires a lever to be adjusted on every coulter.

“It sounds daunting, but they’re easy to get to and it only takes a couple of minutes,” says James.

Other challenges of running such a wide coulter bar are getting it to both articulate over contours and achieve an even seeding depth.

To address this, Horsch has fitted an additional pivot in the centre of each of wing to give a degree of extra flex, along with a pressurised hydraulic ram to prevent lifting of the outer coulters.

Further support is provided by large 550mm wide guide wheels on the outer edge of each wing, which have rams for lifting coulters in and out of work. By fitting these with clip-on spacers, the pitch of the wings can also be adjusted.

As for downforce, this can be altered from the cab, with six hydraulic rams pushing the discs into the ground.

“Pressure is pretty consistent across the entire width,” says James. “I just drop the ones behind the tractor tracks/seed cart wheels a notch deeper to counteract any compaction.”

Come spring, the drill will be put into ploughed ground for the first time, establishing certified gluten free oats destined for Glebe Farm, Huntingdon.

Split seed cart

At the centre of the outfit sits the single-axle seed cart, which both carries the coulter bars and holds 8,500 litres of product.

This area is split into two sections, each with its own metering unit feeding a pair of distribution heads – one on each wing.

Thanks to auto section control, seed delivery is switched on and off automatically when running into short ground at the headlands.

However, with just two 9m sections, there is a bit of over drilling. “It would be nice to have a couple extra, like the US-style drills have, but I guess there wouldn’t be room for the pipework on this more compact version.”

© James Andrews

Generally, when drilling cereals, both the front and rear sections are filled with seed and each metering unit is calibrated to apply a half rate. That said, the rear is sometimes used for applying a little DAP to give the crop a kick start.

As for oilseed rape, this is carried in the front hopper section – along with companion buckwheat seed – with starter fertiliser in the rear.

There are no extra seeders or applicators mounted on the drill itself, but the addition of a Stocks Fanjet Plus on the tractor’s front linkage allows slug pellets to be spun on the surface.

When it comes to refilling the drill, AT Bone and Sons’ operation is about as slick as it gets.

Seed is ferried to the field using a modified flatbed MAN KAT A1 four-wheel-drive truck with an Atlas remote controlled hydraulic crane on the rear.

This can carry eight bags of seed/fertiliser and means there’s no need to involve a telehandler in the process. 

However, plans are afoot to streamline operations further by building a bulk carrier. This will load drills via a high-speed elevator, removing the need to manhandle bags in the field.