Durham farmer and retired contractor Peter Moss reveals his machinery highs and lows over the past five decades. 

Find out about his tractor highs and lows, and what he can’t live without in the workshop – clue, it’s not a power tool!

See also: Driver’s view: Mathew Caudwell’s John Deere W540i

How did you get started?

I met my wife while working on a local farm and we decided to start a contracting business in the late 1970s.

To get going, we sold her Mini to buy a JCB 3CX, which we used for evening and weekend work to start with.

Eventually we left our full-time jobs and bought a tractor to focus properly on the contracting.

It expanded to combining, drilling and silaging – we had one of the first self-propelled foragers in the area and, at our peak, covered 1,200ha/year.

We moved to the current farm in 2000 and stopped offering a silage service 10 years ago, because it got too competitive and many of the local farms switched to round bales rather than clamped grass.

Latterly, I’ve wound right down. I’m 72 this year, so I’ve ended the contracting and just spend my time on the farm.

I also sold our herd of sucklers and Beltex sheep, so I only produce hay and wheat. It’s simple and fairly stress-free.

How brand loyal are you?

When I first started, I went through a Belarus and a couple of Zetor tractors because they were so cheap, but then I bought a six-cylinder John Deere 3130.

It was a great tractor and easy to drive, and I’ve since purchased another one that I’m currently rebuilding.

The last new John Deeres I bought were three 6910s in 2000 – two of which I still have.

But I also had a 6820 that had been a load of trouble and, when I decided to get rid of it in 2016 and compared the options, I switched to a Valtra.

I only demoed the T174 because I get on well with a rep at Brian Robinson Machinery, but it ended up staying.

It’s much easier to climb in and out of than the new Deeres and has been pretty much trouble-free over the 3,000 hours it has done.

As for the other kit, I’ve always liked John Deere combines – the 9780 CTS is the third I’ve had at this farm – and JCB telehandlers.

Favourite dealer?

Ripon Farm Services, and Geoff Brown in particular. He’s a real legend and has really looked after me over the years. I appreciate the way he treats all farmers the same – whether they’ve got a handful of acres or a few thousand.

He’s in his office seven days a week and is always on the end of the phone to help with breakdowns and spare parts.

Favourite piece of kit?

The JCB Loadall – it’s like my right arm and the farm couldn’t function without it. It’s a 61-plate 531-70 that is now on 5,000 hours and has been near faultless, bar a tensioner pulley on the auxiliary belt that collapsed.

Plus, it has the added perk of being pre-AdBlue, which is one less thing to worry about. I’ve also got a 1980s 527 for backup.

Least favourite piece of kit?

We used to do a lot of potato work for a local farm on some very stony land, so we ran two Grimme chain-and-slat destoners.

When they broke, they used to fly to bits and took ages to put back together.

Fortunately, they stopped growing the potatoes eventually, and I happily sold all the gear for the job.

Latest purchase?

A 3.2m-wide (11ft) EasyCut 3200 CV trailed Krone mower, which is now in its third season after replacing an 8ft-cut John Deere.

I wasn’t specifically looking to change it, but the rep at Brian Robinson Machinery called me up when it was traded in and the deal was too good to turn down.

I paid £8,000, which was an absolute bargain, and it works well with my eight-rotor Kuhn tedder, which can cover three mower rows.

I also cut my son and daughter’s hay – they each have about 18ha, so it is kept relatively busy.

Oldest machine still at work?

I have an early 1970s 55hp John Deere 2120 to row up the hay, and I’ve also got a bench saw for it in the winter.

My daughter bought the tractor many years ago for a few hundred pounds – it’s likely worth a load more now.

The Kuhn rake on the back of it is probably as old as the tractor, but it’s the best rake I’ve come across for rowing up, with two rotors taking the grass to one side.

I then come back straddling the row – which is where the tractor’s good ground clearance comes in – to tidy up the other side.

I keep looking for another but haven’t found one yet.

I’ve also got a single-rotor Krone rake that is far newer, but it doesn’t fluff up the grass to let the air through it.

How long do you keep your machines?

If it’s good then I’ll keep it. I don’t tend to buy stuff on a whim.

The only time I really got it wrong was with a straw spreading machine for bedding cattle, which I bought second-hand.

It worked as it should, except the bales were often full of stones and that meant it was like a firing range in the shed. I quickly decided it was easier to bed by hand, so I sent it back.

Next on your wish list?

I’ve got a 240hp artic-steer John Deere 8440, which I found in a local dealer’s yard in 2013. I rebuilt the engine and got a big subsoiler to go with it, and it has been great.

However, I’m now thinking about selling it and buying a more modern one – perhaps 10 years old – that I could rent out to neighbouring farmers that need a bigger tractor but can’t justify the investment.

Plenty of them would like to get into min-till if they had the kit, so I could potentially help them out with that.

Part of the reason is that the Valtra can pull the subsoiler that I originally bought for the 8440, so I have no real need for it anymore.

Biggest machinery mistake?

Chopping off two of my fingers in the forager in 2009. We were still working at 3am after a long day and only had a tiny bit left, but it was raining and the grass kept blocking.

In the end, it was happening so often that I didn’t bother turning the engine off while I got out, but on one occasion I accidentally left the internals engaged and, as I stuck my arm in to clear the grass, it sliced two of my fingers and left them dangling.

I kept pretty calm – it didn’t really hurt all the time my arm was above my head – and managed to get to hospital, where they somehow stitched them back on.

It was a real lesson and could have been so much worse.

Fortunately, I was back on the forager – a Jag 880 – after a few days, with my hand wrapped up like a boxing glove.

Most expensive repair bill?

Forager blow-ups are always expensive. We’re in a stony area as it is, and occasionally the mower would catch a bit of field wall and drag the stones into the crop row.

One blade out of line can rip the whole lot off and even bend the rotor – on one occasion to the tune of £8,000.

More recently, I found that anything to do with AdBlue can be pricey. I serviced my Range Rover and topped it up with regular AdBlue, rather than the Land Rover-approved stuff.

That was a major error, as it reacted with the liquid already in the tank and warning lights popped up immediately.

I took it to the garage where they drained all the AdBlue out and recalibrated the system, at a cost of about £900.

Most overpriced spare part?

I tend to shop about and find non-genuine bits, which are usually a fraction of the cost.

Best invention?

I made blower kits for the knotters on my big Welger and little Massey Ferguson square balers.

The Welger already had two fans, but they completely blocked access to the knotters and weren’t very efficient.

Instead, I plugged an airline into the tractor’s air brake feed. This runs air to the knotters, so whenever I press the brakes they get a little blast that clears any debris.

From my experience, the knotters only play up when there’s too much rubbish on them, and this solution is cheap and dead simple now that all tractors have an air supply.

What couldn’t you live without in the workshop?

Two comfy chairs. My neighbours regularly call in and on many a wet day we’ve sat and had a coffee to solve all manner of problems.

Favourite job and least favourite job?

My favourite is drilling, which I enjoy making a good job of. 

I’ve got a 4m Kuhn power harrow combination that I use straight over ploughed ground.

The land is light and doesn’t like any compaction, so I stopped rolling autumn-sown crops three years ago and the wheat has been much better as a result.

I only roll in the spring when we pick all the stones.

Ironically, my least favourite is stone picking. Despite collecting them every year for two decades, they never go away.

I used to have a big box on the Cambridge rolls, which meant constantly having to get off the tractor seat, but this year we used my daughter’s Gator to clear the field beforehand, which worked much better.

What’s your everyday transport?

A 2006 Mitsubishi L200 Warrior that is now on 70,000 miles and has been really reliable.

I’ve also still got my old 162,000-mile W-reg L200 with dumper tyres on it for knocking about the farm. It’s worth nothing but is on red diesel and does the same job as a £15,000 Gator.

My next project might be to make a flatback for it, as the load bed has worn pretty thin.

And I recently bought a V8 Ford Mustang for a bit of fun with my mates.

Best tractor you’ve had?

The pair of 6910s have never let me down. I had two more of them that I sold to Ireland because they’d been wrecked by the lads that used to drive them during the silage season.

One, a W-reg on 10,000 hours, is in particularly good nick. It has always been mine, so I’ve kept it nice.

Worst tractor you’ve had?

A Belarus that I bought when I started out in the late 1970s. It came from a dealer in Northallerton and cost £3,500, which was peanuts for a new tractor.

There weren’t many four-wheel-drive options at the time – Zetor and County were about the only alternatives – and it looked the part.

It had a relatively quiet cab as well, but the hydraulic lever was miles from the seat and it was a nightmare to drive, so was no good for clocking loads of hours contracting.

I didn’t have much trouble with it, but it was gone within a year.

After that, I got a couple of Zetor Crystal 8011s, before switching to John Deeres. I got on pretty well with the Zetors and, like the Belarus, they were dead cheap – about £4,000 each.

The 80hp four-cylinder engine in them was solid and the spec was amazing. It even included a little tool kit, an air compressor and a hydraulic jack.

Most unusual machine?

An Eager Beaver tractor unit, which was converted by a local engineer to become a self-propelled fertiliser spreader.

It’s an army vehicle that is often chucked out of chinook helicopters, but it has had its front forklift removed and replaced by mounting brackets for the Kuhn spreader.

The controls have also been reversed, so the Perkins engine is now in front of the driver, and it also has a home-made cab.

It only weighs about 1.5t, so can get anywhere, and it has a four-speed high/low transmission and a hydraulic pto. Before I bought it, I’d even seen it chugging around a field pulling a set of rolls.

Biggest machinery bargain?

The Valtra T174 was ex-demo with 500 hours on the clock and I only paid £55,000 for it – they’ll be almost double that now.

I got a right good deal, and it’s probably still worth as much as I paid for it, particularly given how machinery prices have shot up since.