Faced with a growing grassweed problem and difficulties establishing fertility leys, Suffolk organic grower John Pawsey decided to reassess the way he established his crops.

For years he’d planted using an 8m Horsch CO8 drill pulled by a 450hp Quadtrac, which worked well in most conditions and was great at dealing with trash.

See also: Farmer builds £24,000 strip-till drill from scratch

But its seed placement was nowhere near accurate enough for the inter-row weeding and planting of fertility-building leys he needed to carry out in the growing crop.

It also didn’t fit in with his plans to revert to a less intensive mixed farming setup with both winter- and spring-sown crops as well as some two-year clover leys for his low-maintenance New Zealand Romney sheep.

So he set about finding an alternative, and during a trip to see a fellow organic producer in Sweden with his assistant farm manager Nicholas Corp, he came across the Gothia Redskap System Cameleon.

This versatile drill was designed by Swedish farmer Lars Askling and uses a series of independent, contour-following coulters on parallel linkages to give ultra-accurate seed placement, both in terms of depth and side-to-side along the row.

But the clever bit comes when the drill switches into a hoe for taking out weeds between the rows of crop. To make the change, all the operator has to do is knock out a roll pin on each coulter and replace the slender seeding foot with a wider-winged hoeing version.

Then pressing a button in the cab causes the drill to shift sideways so the coulters sit plumb in the centre of the inter row.

A camera mounted on the front of the drill then makes constant adjustments as the drill – now acting as a hoe – goes up between the rows of crop.

After a couple of visits to see the machine working in both drill and hoe mode, Mr Pawsey was convinced of the concept, so decided to buy one and ship it back home.

His 8m drill – which would later be extended to 9m to fit in with his CTF system – was the 100th system Cameleon sold and the first to enter the UK.

It arrived at the start of the summer in semi-kit form and was assembled on the farm ready for autumn drilling.

Mr Pawsey’s drill cost about £80,000, but the price does vary depending on the options you go for.

“When you consider what you would have to pay for a standard 9m drill and a separate inter-row weeder, it doesn’t look bad value,” he says.

Row spacing on the Cameleon is adjustable, but Mr Pawsey and Mr Corp decided to set the coulters at 25cm spacings, so that they can hoe the maximum amount of inter-row soil possible without damaging the crop.

The drill’s first job was to establish autumn-sown cereals into a seed-bed prepared by a 9m Dalbo Cultimax. And because its draft requirement is fairly low, it was pulled easily by the farm’s RTK-equipped, 185hp Case Puma.

“This is a significant cost saving compared with the 450hp Quadtrac we had to put on the front of the Horsch CO8 and has allowed us to completely rethink our machinery strategy, says Mr Corp.

“In time we will downsize the Quadtrac to a more versatile high-horsepower wheeled tractor, further helping to trim costs.”

Establishment of the autumn-sown crops has also been good and due to the accurate seed placement, the crop looks very straight and even, he says. “That will make it so much easier when we come to do the hoeing, which we’ll do as soon as we can get on the ground.”

On top of the drilling and hoeing, Mr Corp will use the Cameleon to sow the farm’s fertility building leys. Previously these were scratched into the preceding crop in April using an Einbock Aerostar weeder with a seeding box, but establishment success was variable, particularly in winter-sown crops.

“We found we couldn’t get enough tilth for good seed-to-soil contact and we were struggling to get the seed in deep enough to find moisture,” he says. “If this establishment fails it’s a big problem for us as it is our source of fertility for the rest of the rotation.”

Having seen the Cameleon undersowing fertility leys in Sweden, he is confident it will do a good job in the farm’s Hanslope series clays. “When the time comes to plant the leys we will use the drill’s hoeing foot as well as the camera guidance system. ”

“This means we will take out any late-germinating weeds, create a decent amount of tilth in the inter-row and plant the crop into a proper seed-bed, all in one pass.”

Because the drill can run through the crop as late as ear emergence, he’s also hoping to be able to plant some green manures that will overwinter until the spring.

This wasn’t possible with the Einbock seeder he used previously as he would have had to plant the crop so early in the season that it would probably smother the crop and wreak havoc with the combine knife.

Controlled traffic farming

During the winter the drill was extended to 9m so it fitted in with the farm’s 8.8m seasonal CTF system.

This setup aims to keep all cultivation, drilling and weeding kit on the same wheelings and is seasonal because some of the ground is still ploughed each year.

Stale seed-bed preparation is carried out using a 9m Vaderstad Carrier and then a 9m Dalbo Cultimax on goosefoot points is used to disturb any germinated weed seeds before going in with the Cameleon drill.

The 8.8m operating width is used as it creates a “double row” between drill bouts. “If we drilled at 9m on a side slope, the gap between drill bouts could close up so that we couldn’t hoe,” says Mr Corp.

“By closing that gap we have a double row which is more competitive against weeds and we know we can hoe everything else.”

What’s next?

At the moment most of the farm is ploughed ahead of the Cameleon, although Mr Corp is aiming to reduce the frequency at which deep tillage takes place in the future.

One of the Swedish growers Mr Pawsey and Mr Corp visited ahead of their drill purchase was practising organic conservation tillage using the Cameleon drill as a one-pass no-till machine.

In the future they may look to use the drill in the same way, with a front-mounted disc openers to open the ground slightly so it is easier for the Cameleon’s tines to bite into the soil.

Mr Pawsey and Mr Corp are also going to be hosting a number of demonstration days later this spring so that other farmers can see the drill in action.

About Shimpling Park Farm

Shimpling Park Farm is in Shimpling, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk.

Farmer John Pawsey started converting the farm’s 600ha of arable ground to organic in 1999 and completed the process in 2007.

He has also gradually converted the 700ha of ground he contract-farms for neighbours, so the whole 1,300ha area is now farmed organically.

Until recently all ground was winter cropped with a mix of cereals and pulses interspersed with fertility-building leys and green manures.

However, a burgeoning grassweed problem and declining soil fertility persuaded him to revert to a mixed farming setup.

Now Mr Pawsey operates a six-year rotation cycle that includes two years of a white clover ley – for his recently purchased New Zealand Romney sheep – followed by a winter cereal crop.

Plans are afoot to undersow this with a green manure, before replanting with another cereal crop in the spring.

This will then be followed by a pulse, such as winter beans, finishing with another spring cereal, which is undersown with the next clover crop.

For his contract-farmed ground he operates a five-year rotation with a shorter red clover ley.

To find out more about the Shimpling Park Farm and the Gothia Redskap System Cameleon, follow Twitter accounts: @shimplingpark, @hanslope, @nicholascorp