Plough, press and drill: That’s the autumn establishment Utopia chased by many arable farmers, but achieved by few. Swedish cultivations firm Väderstad has built its business on cost-cutting minimum cultivation drilling techniques. Now it reckons its Rexius Twin press can save even more time and money. Mick Roberts sees what it has to offer.
Few but the very fortunate farmers, can plough, leave the land to haze off, make one pass with a press and then drill. Suggest that it would be a suitable system for an Essex heavy land farmer and he would laugh you off the place. But well-known farmer Peter Philpot, who has some of the heaviest land in Essex and Suffolk, wouldn’t be one of them. After working with Väderstad to develop the Rexius Twin press he can now establish most of his crops in just three operations: Plough, press with the Rexius and then drill with the Rapid cultivator drill.
As well as cutting the cost of timeconsuming secondary cultivations, the system – particularly the press – improves establishment. This is because, unlike discs and power harrows, the press retains the moisture in the critical drilling layer while evenly consolidating the soil. Moreover, the press works at twice the speed of conventional kit. In one of the few hot dry spells this past summer a 10.2m wide Rexius Twin, powered by a 346hp Case Quadtrac, prepared 100ha of seedbed in 24hr.
The Rexius Twin is available in working widths of 4.5m, 5.5m, 8.3m, 9.3m and 10.3m. Each model weighs 1,250kg/m, including toolbars. Despite the Quadtrac’s plentiful power, the 10.2m we tried made it grunt, going up even the slightest hill. This power requirement equates to 34hp/m. That means even the narrowest 4.5m model needs 150hp – about the same as a power harrow.
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