This year’s Farmers Weekly Farm Inventions competition produced the usual crop of clever designs. David Cousins focuses on some of the ones that caught his eye

 

 

 

Andrew Farnaby’s
Subsoiler drill

Andrew Farnaby’s winter project was to convert a seven-leg subsoiler into a rape drill that could place rape seed and fertiliser in one pass. A redundant Horstine Farmery small seed applicator with land-wheel drive was mounted on top of the subsoiler.

He changed the existing pto drive to a hydraulic one and mounted an old fertiliser drill in front of that which was altered to land wheel drive. Seed and fertiliser is dropped directly behind the legs.

The only two items that had to be bought were the fluted rollers on the rape applicator and a drive pulley. All of last year’s rape was drilled with it and Mr Farnaby says he can’t believe how well it grew.

Rupert Belcher’s
Combine header drawbar

Oxfordshire farmer Rupert Belcher designed this simple drawbar that fits on the front of the corn-cart tractor. It means the tractor driver can move the combine header trailer from one field to another without having to go through the rigmarole of dropping off his corn trailer and re-hitching on to the header trailer.

Keeping the header trailer straight isn’t too difficult, says Mr Belcher, though it’s obviously something you can only do off- road.

Andrew Mason’s
Easy weaner feeder

Separating weaning calves from their mothers in the field generally involves manually rounding up and penning all stock in the field, then separating the calves from their mothers by hand and finally loading them up to be transported.

This is time consuming and labour intensive and can be dangerous, with the risk of cattle escaping or causing injury to themselves or the people handling them.

Andrew Mason’s easy weaner feeder allows the calves into the creep feeder to feed and go out again at will through saloon-style swinging gates, until the farmer is ready to wean them. The saloon gates can be locked in position so that they allow entrance only and not exit by the calves, hence conveniently penning them inside ready to be collected.

This can then be carried out by one individual in a matter of minutes. The device can be used in conjunction with any type, size or style of creep feeder and a prototype is working well.

Martyn Prince’s
Directional birdscarer

Midlands farmer Martyn Prince and his father designed this multi-directional birdscarer. It pivots on a central bearing and changes position after each shot as the wind changes. It has its own battery and solar panel and the gas canister is mounted centrally. It stands 12ft high and can be moved on pallet forks.

The invention has avoided the need to buy further birdscarers, he says, because it is multi-directional and the height means sound travels further.

Phillip Batt’s
Hydraulic tailboard opener

Opening the grain trailer tailboard each time you tip can get pretty tedious. But Ashford, Kent, farmer Phillip Batt speeded up the process by making a grain trailer tailboard hydraulic opener.

It simply unlatches the usual manual piece of chain/loop, which most older trailers have, using a spring-return brake ram. It’s very simple but effective, he says, and saves getting out of the tractor to tip at the heap.

Michael Green’s
Easy bale grab

Faringdon, Oxfordshire, farmer Michael Green stacks big bales endways in the barn ready for loading end-on into his Lucas G bedder-feeder. The problem is getting them out of the barn and most bale spikes aren’t up to the job.

So Mr Green designed a simple grab that uses a hydraulic ram attached to the top of the arm, with three curved tines at right angles on the end. The tines dig into one end of the bale, pushing the other against the frame to steady it when lifting. There’s also a version for dealing with any size of wrapped bale.

So he can now pick individual bales out of the barn end-on and load them straight into the bedder. By pushing the tines in part-way along the bale, it means he can cut the strings and take slices from the end.

Thomas Glanville’s
Hitch converter

Cornish farmer-contractor Thomas Glanville made this simple unit that converts a pickup hitch to a 50mm ball hitch. He uses the ball hitch on his Manitou telehandler to tow the family’s Ifor Williams trailer and the pickup hitch to carry implements or seed to the field. It can be removed and refitted in seconds, he points out.

Michael Burton’s
Tandem roller

Derbyshire farmer Michael Burton made this double tandem roller with a 3.2m width (10½ft) when closed for transport and 5.6m (18½ft) when working. The roller has two drawbars – when one is in use, the other acts as a sprag, pulling it from the centre for transport and from the left when working.

The back roller swings out to make the double roller by pulling a pin, drawing forward, reversing to the side, returning the pin and pulling another sprag across.

Derek Lewis’
Grain pusher

Shropshire farmer Derek Lewis and son Dan built this simple grain pusher from spare steel and a ballast roller which had broken in half and was due to go on the scrapheap. It took half a day to put together.

Stephen Forrest’s
Sheep transporter

Stephen Forrest, head tractor driver at Lowther Estate in Cumbria, made this clever steel-and-plywood sheep transporter which can move 20 ewes and lambs at a time. All the pens have individual doors and the ewes and lambs stay together on the trailer.

A hydraulic ram allows the back of the trailer to raise and lower, so there’s no need for a ramp. With 5,500 ewes on the estate and lambing taking place over a six-week period, has reduced stress levels considerably. In fact he’s about to start building another.

Michael Wilson’s
Bale chute

Faced with bedding up pigs on his own, Berkshire farmer Michael Wilson wanted to find a way that didn’t involve opening yard doors or reaching in over barriers to remove twine or wrap. Equally, he didn’t want the problems of chopping and blowing straw into yards. The solution was to design a bale handler that could pick up and deposit two 5ft bales at a time 6m into the yard using the reach of the forklift. Twine is removed outside the yard and wrap is left in the cradle. A safety chain holds the bales back until they are released by the operator who is stood near the end of the handler.

The unit is self-loading once a week’s straw supply has been lined up so that only one machine is needed. The unit was produced by local trailer guru Pete Scaling and has no moving parts.

James Lee’s
Fence post carrier

James Lee’s simple fence post carrier is made of 52mm steel tube and slots precisely into the weight frame of the tractor. It is held in place by two pins on the weight frame and a chain that is fastened back to the chassis via a modified bolt.

It can be taken on and off by one man in a matter of 20-30 seconds so requires minimal extra effort.

It can hold up to 30 regular posts, kept in position by a ratchet strap, which is plenty of posts for a morning’s work.

Albert O’Neill’s
Twin-ram toplink

Northern Ireland farmer Albert O’Neill had a particular problem when using his Kverneland stone fork during cultivations – it wouldn’t tip forward far enough to get the stones dumped off. Using a longer standard hydraulic ram didn’t help either, as its length meant it could not be crowded or tilted back far enough to stop stones rolling off during work.

As the stone fork is sometimes used up front combined with tasks such as rolling after crop establishment, a light footprint is required. So keeping the stone fork close-coupled is important to reduce the load on the front wheels of the tractor.

With most makes of front linkage having shorter arms and top-link than the tractor’s rear linkage, getting a hydraulic top-link to fully function with a decent tip and crowd angle proved difficult. Also, a double-acting ram was needed to dig out large protruding stones (some the size of a washing machine) out of the ground.

The answer was to mount two identical shorter rams together, back to back. A mounting plate was made and the rams held in place with both standard pins and several U-bolts. Hydraulic supply was teed into both rams which are also fitted with check valves for safety.

After several seasons’ work the toplink has been well tested. It has helped scoop out stones as heavy as 1.5t in weight without any problems. It now enables the ends of the stone fork to tip forward until they touch the ground.

Raymond McShane’s
Multiframe

Northern Ireland farmer Raymond McShane designed this multiframe to which different implements can be attached to, including a four-in-one bale handling unit, which can lift and stack wrapped bales.

It can also be used as a single bale spike, a two-bale spike, and a towing unit. Larger trailers can be towed by the tractor itself when unit is folded up vertically. Other implements including pallet forks, land levellers and yard scrapers can be attached to the same multiframe. A front loader version is also available.

Winners and runners-up

Complex category

• Winner Andrew Farnaby’s subsoiler
  
• Runner-up Stephen Forrest’s sheep transporter
  
• Third place Albert O’Neill’s twin-ram toplink

Intermediate category

• Winner Raymond McShane’s multiframe
  
• Runner-up Martyn Prince’s birdscarer
  
• Third place Andrew Mason’s easy weaner feeder

Simple category

• Winner Michael Wilson’s bale chute
  
• Runner-up Michael Green’s easy bale grab
  
• 3rd place Philip Batt’s hydraulic tailboard opener

Other commended entries

• Derek Lewis’ grain pusher
  
• James Lee’s fence post carrier
  
• Michael Burton’s tandem roller
  
• Rupert Belcher’s combine header drawbar
  
• Thomas Glanville’s hitch converter

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