Normac demo on 9 September will give a chance to see cultivations kit in action

Normac – the Norfolk Machinery Club’s biennial cultivations equipment demonstration – is on 9 September and will give visitors the chance to see all sorts of tillage tackle in action.


Work is never held up because the ground is too wet and heavy equipment is never bogged down. The easy-working soil also reduces the tractor power needed on such a big acreage.


An outdoor pig unit with 2500 sows has its own tractors plus two telehandlers, and the other 1220ha (3050 acres) has a permanent fleet of just three tractors totalling 555hp, which are supplemented by an extra 133hp tractor hired to help with the harvest.


The light land also simplifies the cultivation needs. Some of the sugar beet land is ploughed, but soil preparation for the rest of the arable acreage consists of one or two passes with a 5m-wide tined cultivator followed by a cultivator drill.


Amazone Catros


Amazone’s wide-span Catros 7500 will be working on the demo plots.


The problem with tillage machinery here is not the power requirement, but high wear rates caused by lots of stones in some fields.


Efforts to spread the cost of big machinery items, include sharing the ownership of a 36m self-propelled sprayer with another farm and the six-row sugar beet harvester, helps to earn its keep doing contract work. As well as dealing with barley and wheat with a 9m header, the farm’s combine also harvests the herbage seed using a stripper header.


Cropping is dominated by the barley acreage, split between winter and spring varieties to spread establishment and harvesting workloads. The rotation on much of the arable acreage is two barleys followed by sugar beet and then herbage seeds. An alternative is two years of grass for the pigs followed by sugar beet and then barley.


tractor


Even if it rains during this year’s Normac cultivations event, visitors are unlikely to need wellies.
Most of the 1400ha (3500-acre) Brettenham Manor Farm is on light, free-draining sandy soil that absorbs the heaviest rainfall without becoming muddy.


There is also a large area of permanent pasture, much of it on water meadows and some of it rented for grazing. The pasture, plus field headland strips, are part of a long- term conservation policy, which reflects one of Peter Wright’s personal interests, and his successes include a build-up of stone curlew numbers to about seven pairs plus 170 skylark plots.


“One of the fields for the Normac event is on what we call a medium soil and the other field is lighter,” says Peter Wright. “Generally, it will be quite a contrast to some of the heavier soils they have used for the event in the past and I think it will be interesting to see how different types of machinery perform on this land.”


Normac Demonstration


Host: Brettenham Manor Farm, Brettenham, Thetford, Norfolk.


Soil: 16ha (40 acres) clay, 1384ha (3350) medium to very light sandy soil over chalk.


Crops: 180ha (450 acres) grass for 2500-sow pig unit, 230ha (575 acres) permanent pasture including river meadows and some land under HLS schemes, 233ha (585 acres) winter barley, 135ha (337 acres) spring barley, 27ha (68 acres) wheat, 170ha (425 acres) sugar beet, 100ha (250 acres) perennial ryegrass for seed, 66ha (165 acres) rented to a potato grower and 57ha (142 acres) of game cover.


Opico HE-VA Kulti Seeder


Based on the HE-VA’s Fanterra Vector disc drill, the Opico Kulti-Seeder can be used in min-till systems or on ploughed land.
But it comes with a gravity-fed box drill rather than the pneumatic system used on existing Fanterras. Shattaboards, disc coulters,
then a set of harrow tines and a rubber roller and another harrow finish the job.


Tractors and principle machinery (excluding pig unit equipment)


New Holland tractors – 2 x T7040, 1 x TM155 plus TS125A hired for the harvest.


Tillage machinery: Lemken six-furrow plough and press, 5m Horsch Terrano 5FX cultivator, 6m Horsch Pronto 6DC cultivator drill.


Other machinery: New Holland CX880 combine with 9m header and Shelbourne Reynolds stripper-header, half share in Sands 36m self-propelled sprayer, Vervaet six-row beet harvester, Hesston big baler, Spearhead 6m rotary cutter for headlands.


Kongskilde VibroFlex7400


Kongskilde will be showing off its mounted VibroFlex 7400 stubble cultivator range, which runs from 2.5m to 7m.


Times


When Tuesday 9 September 2008


Where Brettenham Manor, Brettenham, near Thetford, Norfolk IP24 2RP


By kind permission of Shadwell Estates


Admission and parking Free


Contact www.normac.uk.com or 01986 788 209


Exhibitors


Agri-Hire
Fidgeons Farm, Bramford, Ipswich, IP8 4JJ
Tel 01473 744 088
Dowdeswell ploughs
Working plot


Amazone
Blyth Road, Harworth, Doncaster, DN11 8NE
Tel 01302 751 200
Cirrus 4000 and Catros 7500
Working plot


Ben Burgess & Co
Europa Way, Norwich, NR1 2EN
Tel 01603 628 251
John Deere tractors and Equipment
Working plot


Bomford V-N Soil Solutions
Station road, Salford Priors, Evesham, Worcestershire
Tel 01789 773 383
Vogel & Noot ploughs and cultivation equipment
Working plot


British Sugar
Oundle Road, Peterborough, PE2 9QU
Tel 0870 2402 314
Limex Exhibition Unit, Soil sampling machine, etc
Static stand


CTM Harpley Engineering
Cross Street, Harpley, King’s Lynn
Tel 01485 520 355
CTM sugar beet cleaner loaders, Weed Surfer Static stand
Expom cultivators
Working plot


Cousins of Emneth
The Forge, Emneth, Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, PE14 8DE
Tel 01945 584 600
Springboard type 28 Packa Rolla, cambridge rolls, V form loosener
Working plots


Dowdeswell Engineering Co Ltd
Blue Lias Works, Stockton, Southam, Warwickshire.
Tel 01926 812 335
Working plot


Easton College
Easton, Norwich, NR9 5OX
Tel 01603 731 311
Display of college services to the agricultural and wider rural
Static stand


Business community
Elan Farm Machinery
North Cott, Navenby, Lincolnshire, LN5 0EZ
Tel 01522 810 636
Earth wearing parts
Static stand


Farmers Weekly
Quadrant House, The Quadrant, Sutton, Surrey SM2 5AS
Tel 020 8652 4911
Weekly farming journal
Static stand


FGM Machinery
Thistledown, 15 High Street, Marsham, Norwich.
Tel 01263 735 912
Range of weed-wipers
Static stand

Frontier Agriculture
Brecklands Estate, Downham Road, Swaffham, PE37 7QE
Tel 01760 722 772
Displays of services to the farmer Static stand
Gregoire Besson (UK)
Bourn Road, Carlby, Stamford, Lincolnshire
Tel 01778 590 223
Discordon
Working plot

Lemken UK
46 Fuller Road, Harleston, Norfolk, IP20 9EA
Tel 01379 855 449 Working plot
Knight Farm Machinery
Wireless Hill, S Luffenham, Oakham, Rutland LE15 8NF
Tel 01780 722 200
C Press, M Press
Working plots

Kongskilde UK
Hempstead Road, Holt, Norfolk, NR25 6EE
Tel 01263 713 291
Front-mounted Terra Disc, VibroFlex 7400 mounted Working plot
Power harrow/drill, Delta, Rotovator, Parragrubber, etc
Static stand

Kuhn Farm Machinery
Stafford Park 7, Telford, Shropshire, TF3 3BQ
Tel 01952 239 300
Plough, stubble cultivators, cultivator drill
Working plot

Kverneland Group (UK)
Walkers Lane, St. Helens, Merseyside
Tel 01744 853 200
Range of ploughs, cultivation and drilling machinery
Working plot

Lynx Engineering
Wharf Works, Long Buckby, Northamptonshire, NN6 7PP
Tel 01327 843 215
Cultivation and drilling equipment
Working plot

Marrison Agriculture
Unit 1 Ironside Way, Hingham, Norfolk, NR9 4LF
Tel 01953 851 771
Grain storage and drying, fixed equipment
Static stand

McConnel
Temeside Works, Ludlow, Shropshire, SY8 1JL
Tel 01584 873 131
Cultivations equipment, hedge cutters
Working plot

MDT
The Rookery, Saxmundham Road, Framlingham Suffolk, IP13 9PH
Tel 01728 621 682
Sumo equipment
Working plot

Natural England, Catchment Sensitive Farming
122a Thorpe Road, Norwich
Tel 01603 674 954
Static stand


Norfolk and Waveney Machinery Ring
Suite 9, Keswick Hall, Norwich
Tel 01362 668 626
Inter-farmer contracting and machinery Ring for the area
Static stand


Opico
Cherry Holt Road, Bourne, Lincs, PE10 9LA
Tel 01778 421 111
He-va subsoiler, Opico Vari Disc Duo and Tilth
Working plot


Pan Anglia (Country Merchants)
Addison Road, Sudbury Suffolk
Tel 01787 371 313
Agricultural machinery replacement parts
Static stand


Quivogne (UK)
Fen Farm, Washbrook, Ipswich, Suffolk
Tel 01473 730 576
Range of cultivation equipment
Working plot

Rabe Agri
Wireless Hill, S. Luffenham, Oakham Rutland LE15 8NF
Tel 01780 722 200
Cultivation and drilling equipment
Working plot

Randell NFM
Attleborough, Norfolk, NR17 2QZ
Tel 01953 450 400
Massey Ferguson and Fendt tractors, Kverneland tillage equipment.
Vaderstad drills and cultivators
Working plot

The Ratchet Shop
Nutting Grove, Upend, Newmarket, Suffolk, CB8 9PL
Tel 01638 731 608
Lifting and lashing equipment, ratchet straps, webbing and slings, shackles, chain sets, safety harnesses, lanyards
Static stand

Simba-Horsch
Woodbridge Road, Sleaford, Lincolnshire, NG34 7EW
Tel 01529 304 654
Simba SL 400, Simba-Horsch Pronto
Working plot

Stalham Engineering
The Green, Stalham, Norwich, NR12 9QG
Tel 01692 580 513
JCB and McCormick tractors, Vogel & Noot, Rabe, Spearhead
Working plot

Stirtloe Enterprises
Low Farm, Stirtloe, St Neots, Cambridgeshire, PE19 5XW
Tel 01480 810 056
Range of Bertini direct and min-till drills
Working plot

SW Agriservices
The Airfield, Full Sutton, Yorkshikre, YO41 1HS
Tel 01759 371 700
Sumo Trio
Working plot

Terrington Machinery
Market Lane, Terrington St Clement, King’s Lynn,
Norfolk, PE34 4HR
Tel 01553 828 083
Einbock Twister and Einbock cultivation equipment
Working plot

Thurlow Nunn Standen
Wisbech Road, Littleport, Cambridgeshire, CB6 1RA
Tel 01353 662 871
Challenger MT855B and MT765B and associated tillage
equipment
Working plot

Vaderstad
Unit 1, Ellesmere Business Park, Grantham, Lincolnshire NG31 7XT
Tel 01476 581 900
Cultivation and drilling Equipment
Working plot

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