Successive wet autumns have driven feverish demand for relatively lightweight, low-disturbance toolbar drills, but at Saltby Estate in Leicestershire, a recently acquired Grange Tine Toolbar Drill has proved just as valuable in the dry.

Having battled through two challenging campaigns in succession, farm manager Frazer Jolly decided it was time to invest in a versatile support act for the firm’s 6m Horizon DSX 60-18 direct disc drill.

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With nothing on the market satisfying his requirements, he enlisted the help of Yorkshire-based Grange Machinery to design and build something exactly to his liking.

The resulting 6m Tine Toolbar Drill (TDT) – now officially part of the firm’s product range – was paired with a new Horsch Partner twin-tank front hopper for its first spring run-out, during which it covered a higher-than-expected 200ha.

Though the main reason for buying it was the improved weight balance over a conventional trailed implement, which would help the host John Deere 8RX scuttle gingerly over fragile ground, the outfit has come into its own for very different reasons.

“With the lack of rain in the spring, we were finding the slots carved by the DSX’s disc coulters were vulnerable to drying out and gradually peeling open as moisture evaporated.

“That meant it was difficult for roots to penetrate the walls of the V-shaped channel, so germination and seed survival was variable,” says Frazer.

“By comparison, the action of the tine point created a bit of tilth around the seed – without disturbing any ground between the rows – which left the soil more friable and helped mineralise nitrogen.”

For these reasons, the low-input barley sown with the toolbar ended up outperforming that of the DSX this year.

Frazer Jolly © MAG/Oliver Mark

TDT design

Frazer’s initial plan was to design a system that fitted to the back of the farm’s deep-working Low Disturbance Toolbar (LDT), putting the drilling units behind a row of compaction-busting legs.

However, it was decided that this fully mounted setup would be unworkably long and heavy, so he and Grange settled instead on a standalone machine – the TDT.

Its two contour-following wings carry four rows of 20mm-wide straight legs spaced 250mm apart.

Combined with generous under-beam clearance, this minimises the risk of bung-ups from the sheep-grazed but stalky cover crops that Saltby’s spring cereals are sown into.

And, crucially, the only soil disturbance occurs directly around each tine, and at a relatively shallow depth.

Given the farm’s ongoing tussle with blackgrass, this keeps almost all weed seeds on the surface and ripe for degradation from the weather, foraging wildlife and the farm’s herbicide programme.

Modest tilth is produced by a set of Bourgault’s tungsten-tipped, 100mm twin outlet points, which in spring trials proved more successful than the 19mm, single-row version.

“We tried the singles for a field of Laureate spring barley but, with such wide row spacings, there wasn’t enough competition in the crop – at least not in this year’s dry growing conditions,” says Frazer.

© MAG/Oliver Mark

Once sown, seed is consolidated with two rows of levelling paddles, which have replaced the Z-shaped spring tines of the original following harrow.

“We needed slightly more aggressive consolidation on the heavier land.

“And by fitting the paddles across two rows, the first can be set shallow to work either side of the crop row and the second to press soil directly over the seed.”

“They’ll still be little more than tickling the surface, but they’re robust enough and better able to handle the knobbly spring cover crop ground.

“Plus, though we’ll still plan to roll everything afterwards, it won’t be the end of the world if it rains and we can’t.”

Horsch hopper

Providing the seed for the drill’s coulters is a Horsch Partner 2000 FT front tank and twin distribution heads, bought as a package with the toolbar from Claas dealer Manns.

This offers the scope to apply two different products simultaneously, and an accompanying Mini Drill mounted on the back of the toolbar means Avadex or slug pellets can also be put down in the same pass.

The only downside of this front hopper setup is the relatively modest 2,200-litre carrying capacity compared with the Horizon’s 4,700 litres.

But more frequent stops are a small price to pay for the versatility the setup brings in a potentially wet autumn, says Frazer.

“I’d rather be stopping more often than not drilling at all – that near 50/50 weight distribution will make all the difference in catchy conditions, so it’s the perfect alternative to the heavier DSX.”

© MAG/Oliver Mark

Horses for courses

Despite bolstering his drilling armoury, the DSX remains Frazer’s go-to tool for crop establishment across the estate’s 780ha of combinable crops.

And it’s not a one-trick pony either, as the farm has acquired a host of accompanying attachments – almost exclusively from the Grange stable – capable of loosening soil to different degrees to match specific field requirements.

“We’ve got a foot in both camps,” he says.

“Where possible, we’ll direct drill, but I’m not devoted to that approach and when deeper remedial work is necessary to alleviate compaction – or we need some shallow tillage to incorporate chicken muck – then we will do so.”

For one, there’s the aforementioned 6m Low Disturbance Toolbar (LDT), which mounts between the tractor and DSX, to alleviate compaction across the full width in a single pass.

This is typically used in conjunction with a front-mounted Grange Disc Bar, employed to mix chicken muck and biosolids down to about 50mm when sowing overwinter cover crops into post-harvest stubbles.

For cash crops, the disc drill is usually paired with a 3m, four-leg Close Coupled Toolbar (CCT) – dubbed the “Baby Grange”.

This lifts intermediate tractor and combine wheelings, but is raised out of work along controlled traffic tramlines, unless they’ve sunk and are liable to pool water.

And, for emergency heavy cultivations, there’s a 4m Sumo Trio to call on.

“I like to have a lean machinery fleet, but we also need versatility to handle increasingly variable weather – especially in the spring when the ground is tender,” adds Frazer.

Track lifters © MAG/Oliver Mark

Beating blackgrass

The addition of the toolbar drill is the final element in what has been an evolving crop establishment regime, all driven by burgeoning blackgrass pressure that, when Frazer took up post at Saltby a decade ago, was out of control in some areas.

“There used to be a lot of recreational cultivating to a depth of 5in – every field would get lifted with the Sumo Trio, which both buried and raised blackgrass seed, then it was knocked down again before drilling with a Vaderstad Rapid,” he says.

“That couldn’t continue – the blackgrass burden was enormous in places and increasing every year, making winter crops unviable and compaction below 5in a major problem. So we’ve gone to town rectifying the issues.”

This includes introducing a controlled-traffic system to improve the soil structure, building organic matter with natural fertilisers, increasing the spring cropping area, and minimising cultivation where possible to reduce blackgrass seed burial.

Replacing the 2012-built Rapid with the triple-tank DSX direct drill two years ago was one of the most significant moves, as it ensures weed seeds are kept on the surface to be degraded by sunlight, eaten by birds, or wiped out by pre-em herbicides.

“In my opinion, it’s the best drill for direct seed placement, is more robust than the competition, and moves exceptionally little dirt,” says Frazer.

“And we’re now getting the best from it, thanks in part to our operator, Gordon Sykes, and also Tom Sullivan at Horizon, who has been very proactive in sorting the early teething problems.”

The downside, as with all direct disc drills, is its preference for operating in the Goldilocks zone, with ground neither too wet nor too dry.

“The toolbar drill will never match it for accuracy and consistency in optimal conditions.

“But it gives us another option and, though the tines are aggravating a bit more soil, they’re still very low disturbance provided they’re run at a sensible forward speed,” he adds.

“We’ve got a flexible establishment system and can always call on heavier cultivations from the Sumo Trio or Grange LDT if particular fields need extra work. The proof is in crop performance and, as far as the spring barley goes, the investment was well worth it.”