A subsoiler-based oilseed rape drill isn’t a new idea, but the one-pass implement created by Cambridgeshire farmer and precision agriculture pioneer Will Mumford and agricultural electronics specialist Tom Carnell is packed with an impressive array of the latest technology bringing on-farm innovation to a new level.
The electronics and precision farming technology integrated into Will Mumford’s custom-made, low-disturbance oilseed rape drill allow seed, liquid fertiliser, solid fertiliser and slug pellets to be applied in one pass with all four products metered according to individual bespoke variable rate maps.
Effectively the mark two version, summer 2022 was the second season it was used to successfully establish the oilseed rape crop on Will’s farm near St Neots in Cambridgeshire. As founder and CEO of AS Communications and Vantage ASC, Will has considerable experience with precision farming systems. The drill was developed jointly over two years with Tom Carnell, who carried out the majority of the build and whose company, Tramline TEC, specialises in fitting and upgrading precision farming electronics systems on agricultural machinery.
With so many elements to look at, we will progress through the machine from front to back. The basic frame is a 2011 Quivogne SCD300 tool-bar type subsoiler, which Tom modified by adding additional legs and swapping the original Quivogne metal for low-disturbance legs sourced from Pan Anglia. “The leg spacing was originally 500mm, but we concluded that was too wide, so we reduced it to 425mm in the first year and 400mm for 2022,” explains Tom. “This meant fitting two additional legs into the frame. To make them fit I had to gas out the top of the legs and fabricate some spacer plates. We modified the legs too, cutting around 1” to 1.5” off each of the wings to reduce disturbance.”
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