As with most agricultural machine categories, overseas manufacturers hold sway in terms of volume when it comes to the myriad seed drill types offered to growers.

Global giants such as Amazone, Horsch, Kverneland, Lemken, Pottinger and Vaderstad have large (and in some cases multiple) facilities turning out the drills we see in Britain by the many dozens.

But equally, there are smaller outfits both on the European continent and in the UK – and much further afield in New Zealand – keen to get their machines into the hands of British growers, with home-built products particularly focused on the challenges posed by direct-drilling into cereal stubbles and cover crops.

See also: Tractors: Where are they made?

See the locations of the manufacturers on the map below.

The manufacturers

Aguirre

Spanish manufacturer Aguirre fabricates and assembles its products, including the tractor-mounted tine direct drills distributed by Weaving Machinery, at its factory in Tafalla, 25 miles south of Pamplona in northern Spain.

Aitchison

The Grassfarmer and Seedmatic box drills used mainly for pasture seeding are now built in one of two Farmgear factories in Feilding on New Zealand’s North Island.

Earlier this year, Farmgear acquired the assets of these seeders – available through Aitchison Agri UK with inverted “T” tines or discs – from liquidated Reese Engineering, along with the Airpro trailed pneumatic drill.

Alpego

Specialising in pneumatic combi drills based on its own power harrows and rotary tillers, Alpego manufactures its machines in the town of Lonigo, an hour’s drive west of Venice in northern Italy, where it also builds subsoilers, tine cultivators, disc harrows and flail mowers.

Owned by the Pegoraro family, the company recently closed its own UK distribution business to entrust sales and support to Opico.

Amazone

Three factories in north-west Germany produce Amazone’s extensive range of seeders and planters, with the Primera tine direct drills built alongside sprayers at the group’s Bramsche factory near Osnabruck.

Components for the remaining products are produced an hour further north at Hude/Oldenburg for assembly at the neighbouring Hude/Altmoorhausen plant, where a €20m (£17m) paint shop is now in operation.

An extension completed this year for trailed Precea TCC precision planters and the new Cirrus Grand means there are now 18 seed drill assembly lines there.

Bednar

Having progressively expanded its manufacturing, assembly and associated facilities, Bednar now has substantial production capacity for its tillage equipment and a growing number of different seed drills outside the small town of Rychnov nad Kněžnou, two hours east of Prague in Czechia.

The latest expansion phase was completed in 2020 at this location, which is supported at nearby facilities providing a large parts store and a development and service centre, where short-series assembly of certain products is carried out.

Bramleys Seed Establishment

This newcomer to the seed drill manufacturing fraternity outsources components for its Zone toolbar seeders for assembly at workshops on Station Farm at Bolton Percy near York.

Brock

The trailed Campaign with tine coulters is built by J Brock & Sons, the company that also imports Farmet drills and tillage equipment, at its farm and workshop premises in Thaxted, Essex.

Claydon

The challenges of ploughing and having to deal with the resulting chunks of heavy Suffolk clay on the family farm at Wickhambrook, near Newmarket, prompted the development of the first Claydon drill in 2003.

As sales grew for the V Drill direct strip tillage seeder and its SR, Hybrid and Evolution successors, assembly facilities were established and, in 2023, expanded to double production capacity for the drills and related products.

Cross Slot

For the UK market, this trailed direct drill has been assembled by Warwickshire-based Primewest from locally fabricated frames carrying the Cross Slot opener assemblies produced in New Zealand. But future arrangements, now that Primewest is working with Novag, remain to be made.

Dale

While laser-cut profiles, fabrication and painting of chassis and tine coulter assemblies are outsourced to mainly local businesses in Lincolnshire, Dale’s Eco-Drill and MTD direct seeders are all assembled on the Pepperdale Farm premises at Howsham near Market Rasen using components from suppliers in Britain where possible.

Duncan

Since 2018, when Giltrap Ag bought Clough Agriculture and its Duncan range of tine and disc coulter box and pneumatic seed drills, the machines have been assembled in Washdyke near Timaru, two hours south-west of Christchurch on New Zealand’s South Island east coast.

The drills are built alongside Giltrap’s forage wagons, bale feeders and fertiliser and slurry spreaders, and distributed from Ireland by Duncan Ag.

Erth Engineering

Northern Ireland-based Erth specialises in assembly of the Agriseeder tractor-mounted direct disc drill used mainly for pasture seeding and the associated Panbuster grassland subsoiler in its premises at Seaforde, 22 miles south of Belfast.

Farmet

The Falcon range of trailed pneumatic drills, distributed by J Brock & Sons, are produced by Czech manufacturer Farmet alongside fertiliser application kits and disc and tine cultivators.

They are available with different soil-working elements from the factory in Ceska Skalice, 90 miles east of Prague, alongside Farmet’s vegetable oil processing equipment products.

Fentech

In 2022, Fentech Agri, an off-shoot of this bespoke engineering design and manufacturing business based in Pinchbeck near Spalding, Lincolnshire, acquired the Simtech T-Sem tine direct drill range (which the parent company had contract manufactured since 2018) before adding Tillso tillage products in the same year.

Grange

This year’s introduction of the Tine-Drill Toolbar for use with a front-mounted seed hopper marks Grange Machinery’s expansion from just cultivation equipment into seeders.

Production is located at farm premises near Sproatley, just eight miles east of Hull, East Yorkshire.

Horizon

A change in crop establishment techniques on the farm where Horizon drills are now assembled informed the design of the no-till machines, related tillage implements and the precision planters.

Some key components are sourced worldwide and chassis fabrication is outsourced locally, but all paint preparation, painting and assembly is carried out at Horizon Agriculture’s base at Clifton’s Bridge, near Sutton St James, Lincolnshire.

Horsch

Big investments to increase production capacity are evident at the two factories manufacturing components and assembling finished Horsch products, with the headquarters plant at Schwandorf, 60 miles east of Nuremberg in southern Germany, and the Ronneburg factory 140 miles further north, effectively doubling in size.

In addition to tillage equipment, both plants produce different models of Avatar and Pronto drills and Maestro planters. Express and Taro drills are all built at Ronneburg, and the Focus, Serto, Sprinter and Versa seeders are assembled at Schwandorf.

Extra capacity at Ronneburg came on line earlier this year, and, in addition to an expansion at Schwandorf in 2022, the plant has received a new painting installation.

John Deere

While the soil-engaging coulter assemblies for John Deere 750A All-Till and 740A drills are brought in from the company’s seed group plant in Valley City, North Dakota, in the US, frames, hoppers and so on for these European market drills are manufactured and assembled on contract at the Kverneland Group’s Soest plant in Germany.

Kockerling

Two nearby locations contribute to the production of Kockerling’s seed drill range – the headquarters plant in the small town of Verl in central Germany, 76 miles south-west of Hannover, being responsible for manufacturing the majority of components, while final assembly takes place eight miles to the south in the village of Delbruck.

Kuhn

Production of Kuhn’s extensive range of seed drills and precision planters is concentrated at three locations, including the group’s French headquarters factory in Saverne, close to the border with Germany in the east.

This assembles the Integra and Sitera drills, with the Espro seeders assembled in the separate MGM Monswiller facility nearby that caters specifically for large drills and cultivators.

Meanwhile, 500 miles away at Chateaubriant in north-west France, the Kuhn-Huard site builds Premia box drills and all Kuhn precision planters.

And 50 miles to the east in Rheinmunster, Germany, fertiliser spreader supply partner Rauch, in which Kuhn has a 25% shareholding, builds the Megant and Venta seed drills.

Kverneland

The entire output of Kverneland Group’s seed drills, such as the U-drill disc and tine combination and the mounted air seeders, comes out of the former Accord factory in Soest, north-west Germany, some 30 miles to the east of Dortmund.

Combination outfits based on tine cultivators and the power harrows are also assembled there, as well as the Monopill, Pudama and other precision planters.

All plastic components for Kvenerland products, including drills and planters, are turned out in small factory seven miles to the north in Oestinghausen.

Lemken

All Lemken seed drills and precision planters – such as the Solitair, Azurit, Saphir and OptiDisc – now come out of the “seeding competence centre” at Haren close to the Netherlands border in north-west Germany.

This factory built sprayers until Lemken exited that market in 2020, and was expanded to take in seed drill and planter production, which released capacity for ploughs and tillage implements at the headquarters factory in Alpen, 100 miles to the south.

Lyckegard

The novel Cameleon, acquired from its farming originator by Swedish machinery manufacturer and distributor Lyckegard, is designed as a multi-role implement capable of working as a harrow, seed drill and inter-row hoe, primarily for organic cropping.

It is manufactured at Lyckegard Group’s Soil & Seed Equipment subsidiary in the town of Fornasa, 140 miles south-west of Stockholm.

Maschio Gaspardo

The 1993 acquisition of Gaspardo brought seed drills and precision planters into the realm of power harrow manufacturer Maschio, with today’s factory complex at Morsano al Tagliamento, near the north-east coast of Italy, producing the bulk of the product lines.

At the group headquarters in Campodarsego, 70 miles south-west, the factory building power harrows and tillers also assembles one-pass combination drills based on these implements.

Moore Unidrill

Once assembled in Northern Ireland before Sumo took on production at its Yorkshire base in 2009, the current Moore Unidrill is assembled at Carlby, in Lincolnshire, by Moore Unidrill Manufacturing.

This new business was set up by the directors of Agri-Linc, who acquired the original Moore Unidrill business in late 2019 and produce the drill in pasture and arable configurations with an array of spring-loaded discs.

Mzuri

A practical lesson in the costs of farming heavy land with conventional tillage equipment was the spur that led to development of the Mzuri Pro-Til and iPass strip cultivation direct drills.

The farm near Pershore, Wilts, continues to provide a trials and demonstration base, in addition to drill assembly for the UK and other markets in western Europe, while a joint-venture assembly facility in Poland, established in 2017, serves central and east European customers.

Novag

Located since 2018 in a new factory in Fressines, 50 miles west of La Rochelle on the central west coast of France, the farming/engineering founders of Novag built their first no-till drill in 2011 using Baker inverted “T” openers before choosing to develop their own design the following year.

Pottinger

Buying the Rabe seed drills business in 2001 provided a new product range to complement Pottinger’s ploughs and tillage equipment, with production in an expanded and modernised factory continuing today.

The facility at Bernburg is 50 miles north-west of Leipzig in the east central region of Germany, and 350 miles north of the group’s headquarters factory at Grieskirchen in Austria.

Towards the end of 2022, Pottinger moved into precision planters with the acquisition of Italian manufacturer MaterMacc, whose products assembled in San Vito al Tagliamento, 60 miles north-east of Venice, continue under the same brand.

Sky Agriculture

The current Sky Agriculture drill range results from combining the previously Sulky-branded machines with the group’s direct and minimum tillage products launched under the Sky name.

All models – including conventional, power harrow-based, trailed disc and tine, and disc coulter direct drills – are assembled on the outskirts of Chateaubourg, 80 miles north of Nantes in north-west France.

Sumo

Component manufacture and assembly at Redgates near Melbourne in Yorkshire results in a seeding toolbar for cultivators, a strip tillage seeder and a disc coulter direct drill in Sumo’s tillage-focused product range.  

Sola

Distributed under KRM Sola identity in Britain, the Spanish manufacturer’s various tine and disc coulter seeders are all manufactured and assembled at the company’s sole plant in Calaf, 55 miles north-west of Barcelona.

Triton

The ultra-low disturbance Side-Press tine seeders supplied by Triton Seed Drills at Great Abington, near Cambridge, are manufactured and assembled on contract 50 miles north, near Wisbech, by tillage equipment specialist Cousins of Emneth.

Vaderstad

Assembly of all Vaderstad seed drills and precision planters – with the exception of large units built in Canada for growers in North America, eastern Europe and selected other markets – is carried out at the group’s headquarters plant in its home town of the same name in southern Sweden.

Intensive vertical integration is a key policy, so in addition to fabricating frames and other assemblies in-house, Vaderstad Components AB, located near Overum, 75 miles to the east, manufactures discs, tines and packer rings when the majority of drill makers outsource such components.

In 2019, £3m was spent on a new machining and hardening line for soil-engaging components; in 2025, a third disc production line will be ready, taking the component manufacturing lines to 18 in all.

At the main plant in Vaderstad, 150 miles south-west of Stockholm, a £9.1m factory extension was added in 2023, and a further increase in production capacity should be ready by the end of this year.

Virkar

A farmer, engineer and technician are the three people who formed Virkar Group in 2012 to create a direct drill, the Dynamic, now available in disc and tine formats from distributor Samagri, and assembled by the Spanish enterprise at Igualada, 42 miles north-west of Barcelona.

Weaving

Becoming the GB importer of Krause direct drills from the US in the late 1990s set Weaving on a path towards engineering a comprehensive range of low-disturbance seed drills and cultivators, while importing Aguirre tractor-mounted tine drills from Spain.

Some steel fabrication, cutting and bending for Weaving tine and disc direct drills are outsourced to local suppliers, but much fabrication and all assembly is carried out in-house at the company’s greatly expanded base near Evesham, Worcestershire.

Resources have been significantly increased in recent years and were comprehensively updated in 2020-21, with a bespoke automated shot blaster and new paint spray booths among the upgrades.