12 farm inventions to change your life
The 2013 farm inventions competition yielded a rich harvest of farm-built machinery and equipment, which could change life on your farm.
After much discussion and consideration, our machinery reporters Oliver Mark and David Cousins picked out six winners and the best of the rest.
Winner: Aaron Hogsbjerg’s Cultivator
This heavy-duty piece of lime-coloured kit is a trailed tine/press combo designed to wipe out young blackgrass volunteers prior to drilling.
It is called the Ipress and was sent in by Essex farmer Aaron Hogsbjerg. A levelling bar leads the five rows of tines to knock off high lumps and bumps without bulldozing its way across the field. Spacers on the main ram set working depth of the spring tines and it usually runs at about 40-50mm.
Custom-made vertical points with a small thumb-sized tungsten boot loosen the top soil, although one winter improvement will see the spring tines replaced by vertical, shearbolt-protected legs.
Behind the tines is a row of hydraulically levelling flaps to push the soil and level out the seedbed, before a single press consolidates the ground. This leaves a nice ridge to take the weather before drilling and chains hang between each press wheel to stop it bunging up. Two hydraulic rams either side pull the wings up ready for transport.
The iPress uses all four spools on the farm’s 240hp MF7499 and Mr Hogsbjerg says the cultivator was perfect for last year’s miserable autumn. It took just over four-and-a-half months to build in between sugar beet lifting.
Runner-up: Edward Ward’s Three-in-one-rolls
A lull before harvest this year allowed Beckingham, Lincoln farmers Edward Ward, his brother George and harvest student Mathew Sheardown to turn their set of 12m set of rolls into a three-in-one machine that rolls, applies slug pellets and Avadex granules.
Not only did this save time and passes but it also cut out the need for a contractor to apply the Avadex.
First they bolted on an existing Stocks fanjet electric metered slug pelleter. Then they took an old combi drill that had not been used for five years, dropped off the coulter bar and made it fit straight on to an A frame on top of the rolls. It means they can remove the hopper in about five minutes if they want to.
The mechanical drive wheel was a little more complicated to fit but with a bit of grinding and welding it now lifts in and out of work hydraulically at headlands. Spreader plates from a Stocks rape seeder were welded to the frame of the rolls and pipework fitted to pipe Avadex granules to the rear.
In all the project took about four days and cost about £250 for new steel, hydraulic piping and new seed delivery pipes.
Winner: Matthew Dymond’s Road Crosser
For farmers and contractors who use umbilical systems to get slurry out to applicators or injectors in the field, running the pipes across roads is a pain.
Some contractors use wooden ramps to allow cars to cross but drivers are often nervous to use them. Others use a handler to hold the pipe up to let cars pass undernaeth, but that means that the handler is out of action all day.
Torrington, North Devon contractor Matthew Dymond came up with a clever road crosser for bridging umbilical pipes acress public roads.
He used an old Collins trailer chassis, a Buffalo slurry tanker axle and rams from an old sheargrab to make a hydraulically-erected bridge across the road with the slurry pipe sat on top of it.
Getting the rams in the right place to make the whole unit fold right was the toughest part, he says, but with help from his school maths book he got the folding system right first time.
Now the road crosser can straddle roads up to 7m wide and 5m high – enough for lorries to pass underneath.
It also means that he doesn’t have to wait until farmer-customers finish feeding their cattle before he can use their telehandler to hold up the pipe.
Runner-up: Robin Humphries’ Fencing Machine
Fence joining can be exceptionally tough on the thumbs, so Robin Humphries set about designing a tool to make life easier for fence builders.
The backend is a standard Riobi cordless drill with a series of sprockets and bevel gears leading up to a spinning head at the front.
So, with the two ends of fence wire overlapping by 150mm and ready to join, the two pieces of wire are bent through 90deg (one pointing upwards, the other downwards).
The machine uses a sprag clutch to allow the front disc to only turn in one direction to allow the operator to line up the slit in the disc head with the outer frame’s feed-in channel.
Once the wire is slid into the slot, pulling the trigger turns the disc head until the two mini anvils mounted on it meet up with the two pieces of wire.
Then it’s just a case of pulling the trigger until the wire has wrapped itself around the opposing piece. The faster it turns the warmer the high tensile wire gets and the less draining it is on the 18V battery.
There’s no force required to operate it either, says Mr Humphries, and it should last the whole day on one battery.
Winner: Ralph Messenger’s Cattle Feeder
Dorset farmer Ralph Messenger decided to build his own silage feeder to increase feed capacity for his 280 out-wintered suckler cows and calves.
Replacing a three-bale-capacity mobile feeder, the Confeeder was constructed from a forty-foot shipping container and two front lorry axles and will comfortably carry 15 round silage bales. The container sides were cut out and replaced by a feed rail and supporting struts.
It means the bales can be loaded straight into the feeder from the shed without interfering cows pulling them apart first. The trailer can also be left in a different part of the field each day to reduce the build-up of spoilage and muck.
Mr Messenger has now been running the feeder for two winters and reckons it saves at least 100 tractor and man hours each year.
Runner-up: George Anderson’s Calf Catcher
An afternoon’s work saw George Anderson from Morpeth, Northumberland, build this calf catcher. It attaches to his Massey Ferguson 7000 ATV through two ball hitches – one at the rear and a second mounted to the front frame – and runs on a fifth wheel.
The sliding front door operates on a pulley and, once the calf is caught, the operator can get on with tagging/dehorning the calf in the safety of the cage.
The ATV side of the catcher is open to improve accessibility and the whole thing only takes a few seconds to take on/off. A toolbox mounts on the frame to carry the necessary equipment, too.
Raymond McShane’s Bale Spike
Serial inventor Raymond McShane developed this compact bale splitter to mount on a tractor three-point linkage.
The top two spikes are driven outwards by a hydraulic ram to rip the bale from the top down.
A third rigid tine at the base of the frame bears the weight of the straw and should also help the bale split evenly.
It’s no wider than a standard bale spike and, when closed, can double up as a standard set of spikes for moving bales.
Fred Fowler’s ATV Seeder
This mini trailed drill was designed by Fred Fowler to seed buffer strips and game cover crops.
The one-metre wide, seven-leg tool bar has standard tines leading the seeding tubes that deliver seed from a five-litre hopper. The metering system runs off an electric motor which, in turn, is powered by the ATV’s 12v battery.
Winding a bolt in or out deals with tine depth control. The frame is mainly made of box-section steel and will hook to the tail of any ATV or farm buggy.
Chris Thomas’ Hedgecutter Adaptation
Chris Thomas, who farms in Norfolk, came up with a hydraulic roller kit for his year-old McConnel hedge cutter from leftover bits and bobs found in his assorted metal collection.
The design sees a shaft carried in bushed bearings across the length of the cutter head.
Two bell cranks transmit the hydraulic ram motion to two push rods connected to the rear roller, which are located close to the sides of the cutter head to avoid impeding the cut material as it gets flung from the flails. Countersunk bolts in the push rods help in this department.
Mr Thomas made his own bronze-bushed bearing blocks and the outer lever is made from a piece of plate welded to an old worn sprocket from a sugar beet loader.
The ram was pinched from a Massey combine and is piped to the two spools on the tractor. One line goes via a hydraulic accumulator to provide a small amount of suspension to protect the system from bangs and crashes when cutting rough verges.
For Mr Thomas it has meant that he can change roller position in a couple of seconds, rather than the 10-minute job it was previously. The hydraulic accumulator also helps stop wear and tear on the rest of the machine, he says.
Toby Skinner’s Balewrap Plastic Holder
Devon contractor Toby Skinner spent an afternoon welding together a steel carrier frame to haul around six extra plastic bale wraps.
A fair chunk of Mr Skinner’s work is round bale silage and, with the wrapper only capable of carrying three wraps, the extras were usually just bundled on board and dumped at the edge of the field.
The carrier quickly attaches to the standard front weight carrier of a John Deere tractor and means the unit can carry nine rolls in total.
It was designed to fit tractors without a front linkage and means that it doesn’t hang too far off the nose of the tractor for pulling in and out of tight Devon gateways. A lick of Deere-green paint finished the job.
Daniel Cracknell’s Grassland Aerator
Sward aerators are evergreen pieces of machinery and Suffolk farmer Daniel Cracknell built his from various bits of redundant farm kit.
The drum section started life as a power harrow packer, but after being cut to size and adapted to handle the Spaldings aeration blades it looks good for another half-a-century of service.
The blades will stab down to 150mm – enough to remove most of the surface compaction – and two 200-litre manganese tanks are strapped on top to make sure there’s maximum penetration.
The tine bar at the back was donated by an old hay turner but the tines were bent sufficiently to help dethatch the sward and encourage rejuvenation. It has five settings to adjust the aggressiveness and amount of disturbance the tines create.
Eight days work saw the fabrication job finished and, as well as rejuvenating grassland on the home farm, it has opened up new contracting opportunities for Mr Cracknell.
Phil Manford’s Front-mounted Bale Handler
Oswestry-based farmer and contractor Phil Manford made this impressive-looking front-mounted big bale handler.
A substantial mast from Ebay and heavy-duty three-point linkage allow it to lift two Claas Quadrant or New Holland square bales at a time. That means a trailer can be loaded five high with square bales or round bales – that’s a total of 35 Quadrant bales and 28 New Holland ones.
More importantly, it’s a one-man/one tractor operation that still gives good workrates. The mast can also be crowded and tilted and either pallet forks or spikes can be fitted.