Of all the potential catastrophes that might befall a busy farm in the heat of harvest, perhaps the most unlikely – and, in some ways, the most eerily alarming – is a Putin-esque cyber attack.

But that’s the standout story of the autumn for Ballygowan contractor James Townley, whose seven-year-old Svegma continuous-flow grain dryer went completely haywire following some nefarious behaviour from a mystery being.

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James has the dryer rigged up to a wi-fi connection that allows him to view and alter the settings from his phone, saving the ear and leg ache of hanging about in the barn.

“At about 1am, all the settings started changing to crazy numbers, and every time I reset them, they’d alter again,” James says.

“There had been reports of a suspicious car in the neighbourhood, so I was pretty worried as I trudged out to see what was going on.”

Spookily, there was no one to be seen, yet the figures continued to change as he corrected them on the dryer’s main touchscreen.

“They must have hacked into it online and obviously didn’t know what they were doing – they were just mucking about.

“Fortunately, the numbers they were entering were so wild that the machine just shut down. I pulled the internet cable out and resorted to checking it manually for the rest of the season.”

To stop it happening again, he plans to tighten up security with a software update and complete password reset.

Easy-ish harvest

Bar those shenanigans, harvest was unusually cruisy, with a prolonged dry spell through the second half of October and early November making for a surprisingly straightforward maize campaign.

Decent ground conditions meant there was no problem hauling full loads off the field, and the team was in the rare position of waiting for crops to ripen.

In all, they chopped about 400ha of maize, up roughly 10% on 2023 due to the wet spring that forced arable growers to abandon their barley plans and change tack.

However, with crops drilled late into cold ground and a shortage of sunlight through the growing season, yields were far from vintage.

“I always think of big maize leaves as solar panels and, unfortunately, they just didn’t get enough sun through June and July to put power in the plant,” says James.

“Some had no cobs at all and most of the others had two that were pencil-thin, rather than one big one.”

A new early maturing variety, Gema, did grow reasonably well and produced a good-sized cob, but the best performers were those under plastic – justifying the extra expense over those planted in the open.

Maize remains the best earner as far as cropping is concerned on the firm’s 130ha of owned land, with cereals underwhelming for a second season in succession.

“In 2023 we lost £370/ha on the winter barley, and last year we were down £395/ha across our 30ha. But we’re dealing with fine margins. That’s for a 5t/ha average, but where we managed to get 6.7/ha we pulled a small profit – 1.5t/ha makes all the difference.”

The results were no surprise, the crop having been drilled in a wet October and taken a shedload of rain over the winter months.

“I knew it was going to be rubbish, so I cut back on spraying. Combined with some price reductions passed on by suppliers, we managed to reduce our expenditure by £135/ha.

“But even those savings weren’t enough. It doesn’t help that the price is struggling to hit £200/t,” he adds.

However, hope is on the horizon, with barley drilling having started on 22 September and the crop off to a good start. Unless there’s loads of rain, grain and straw yields might well be good…

The winter wheat fared slightly better, landing a £25/ha profit after breaking even in 2023. “It’s a small gain but, given the weather we’ve had, anything is a bonus,” says James.

Grass was a mixed bag too. Silage rumbled on until the end of September but, James explains, there simply wasn’t the tonnage to fill the clamps.

The upshot of the underwhelming yields was that the Townleys beasted the daily output – up from 40ha to 60ha in some cases – which left far more time for cereal harvesting and drilling.

“Usually at that time we’re running at 110% capacity with absolutely no room for breakdowns, so although it still felt frantic – we didn’t know if or when the weather would break – it was an easier few weeks than expected.”

Breakdowns

There is only one major breakdown and a relatively minor hold-up to report since our last visit.

The cheaper of the two was snapped U-bolts on the 10-year-old, 50,000-bale Case LBX 432 big square baler that caused its axle to practically fall off.

It happened just before the weekend so there was a delay in getting it sorted.

But lower yields meant this was less of an issue than it might have been – the two balers saw their combined workload cut by at least 2,000 bales last year, making a total of about 4,500.

This gave them time to shop around for replacement parts.

“The dealer wanted £200 a U-bolt and there were apparently none in the UK at the time.

That seemed steep, and so it proved – we managed to find a manufacturer in Lisburn that was selling them for £11 apiece, so we bought a whole set.”

Issues with the Lexion combine were decidedly pricier. First, it picked up a stone that snapped a chain in the front elevator trunking, putting it out of action for 48 hours.

Three days later came an altogether more serious problem – a rasp bar broke free of the main threshing drum, causing £30,000 of damage.

Strangely, this occurred as the threshing system was starting up rather than while cutting, and James is none the wiser as to the cause.

“We needed a new drum, concaves and trap door, and it’s got us thinking about checking the other combine, as it has done more hours – albeit fewer cutting acres.”

This high-hour, low-acre tally is typical of the Townleys’ harvester fleet, as they spend so much time on the road and in fiddly 2ha fields.

“Both Lexions are on roughly 2,200 engine and 1,100 drum hours, but the header might only have been on the ground for 800 of those, so the ‘effective’ engine hours are very low.”

This, he says, is the main challenge in offering a contract combining service in the region. “We’re having to take depreciation at £60/ha on each combine, whereas farms in southern England might be on half that.

“No matter the charge rate, there’s not a lot of money to be made solely from combining – it’s a service we often have to offer customers for little or no profit.”

“The only way it stacks up is if we can bundle all customers’ major arable operations together. If we can do the ploughing, drilling and spraying, all those small pounds/ha start to add up.

“It won’t buy me a Ferrari, but any profit we do make can be rolled back into the business for better and more efficient machinery.”

Tight margins across the board are bringing more scrutiny on the replacement policy, with both combines having breached the firm’s typical 2,000-hour line in the sand.

“We’ve been inclined to run them for longer – they’ve already done an extra season – and, if we can make the sums work for a new one, it won’t be a Lexion.

“A Trion Montana model will match our Lexion 630 Montana for output; we don’t have the field sizes to benefit from the improvements to the new Lexions, so it would be a struggle to justify the extra £30,000,” James says.

“We’re speaking to our Claas rep and we might be able to do something this winter. With England having had a bad harvest, and the implications of the Budget, they’re probably more inclined to talk about sensible prices.”

Machinery incomings

The firm’s mounted Amazone sprayer has also been served notice, though the upgrade has been delayed as James decides what to do about the four-cylinder Claas Arion 520 that carries it.

“We’ve been running the sprayer on the big New Holland T7.270 on flotation tyres through the autumn, but from spring onwards it goes on the Claas.

“Trouble is, it’s not isobus compatible, and any sprayer we get will be.”

The option of switching to a clean, second-hand self-propelled is now off the table.

“It’s an expensive luxury – it would cost £50,000 more than a sprayer and tractor, it’s dear to run, and there’s not the demand for liquid fertiliser in this area to get the most from it.”

“Alternatively, we could bodge along with the big tractor in the short term but, at some point, we’re going to have to bite the bullet and replace the Claas.”

One machine that won’t be going anywhere is the 6,000-hour Claas Xerion 3300. Instead, it’ll be treated to a new set of injectors this winter that should solve its reluctance to start.

“It owes us nothing – it costs us £2/hour for servicing, drinks between 5-12 litres/ha mowing and is probably still worth £70,000.

“The £125,000 we paid for it looks pretty cheap now and the Cat engine is fantastic – the harder you work it, the better is goes.

“There’s no reason why it can’t go to 20,000 hours, especially as there’s nothing to replace it with – at least until Claas realises that it should be building a new small Xerion.”

However, it will gain a new triple mower combination, its fourth set in 18 years, with the old ones having now completed seven seasons.

Winter jobs

Since the workload tailed off in late November, the busiest machine in the yard has been the pressure washer.

“Right now, it’s all about getting everything serviced, washed and greased. It’s a great chance to spot any issues and properly sort breakdowns that we patched together through the summer.

“We’ve no set budget for it – whatever needs doing will get done. The way we look at it, you either pay for maintenance and repair bills, or machinery finance.

“Five years ago, for example, we spent £17,000 with the John Deere dealer sorting issues with high-houred machines.

“The following year we replaced our 7530 and 6930 and our spend on parts and repairs dropped to £2,000.”

“The ‘extra’ £15,000 didn’t disappear – it just shifted to a different part of our accounts.

“The advantage was that we knew how much was going to be need paying and when, whereas a breakdown can happen at any time.”

The workshop will also be busy with several planned fabrication projects over the long winter months.

Another front-mounted stone fork is top of the agenda – an 8ft model that will be a copy of one of James’s previous designs.

“What we want is something that would be too expensive to sell: a contractor-spec fork that’s strong enough to lift out concrete gate posts.”

Also in the pipeline is a folding push-off buck rake that will work in both its open and closed position on the JCB 435 shovel.

“There’s nothing on the market, so I’ll need a few weeks to design it,” adds James.