Well 2016 has proved to be a busy year with weather all over the place and politics bringing plenty of surprises and uncertanties but the farming community knuckles down and continues as always.

     As for us well farm track repairs have been steady but worthwhile as has the grassland subsoiling. Fertiliser spreading was tough as the dairy industry was still suffering at the begining of the year but our customers stayed loyal and hopefully we stayed as competative as possible whilst still supplying a valuable service.

     The soil testing as ever is impotant to us and that has grown again this year not only pH testing and broad spectrum analysis but doing more pcn testing than ever and as the EU continue to clamp down or ban the use of certain pesticides and nematicides then more importance is placed on the monitoring of pcn numbers.

     Lime spreading as always is the core business and both the Bredal k105 and gustrower GDK9.000t have been kept busy right up until our last days spreading this year on the 21st December spreading 57t of Limex for a diary farmer in Cheshire.

     We would like to take this oppertunity to say thankyou to all our customers, suppliers and business partners and wish you all a happy christmas and prosperous new year.

     All the best from Andrew, David and Graham!

     The beginning of the year has been quite eventful and busier than we had expected.

     The spring seemed long and wet and the lime sector was continuous but arduous with soft conditions underfoot. Fertiliser got off to and early start and we thought the season would be steady but with more requests for farm drives and tracks to be repaired or graded it kept us all busy. A few workshop jobs and machine maintenance before harvest soon brought us into July and the anticipation of harvest was upon us.

     One other minor change was the chance sale of our oldest and smallest lime spreader and the retirement (from lime spreading only!!!) of David Dutton. Since buying the Gustrower GDK9.000t we can cope with lime spreading demand and a chance enquiry regarding one of our Bredal spreaders brought the decision to sell to a head. David is still an integral part of the business and is now concentrating on soil sampling and increasing our farm track repair division. 

Happy Harvest to everyone and hope all goes smoothly.

Our new Gustrower lime spreader, the GDK 9.000 has arrived in the country and was taken directly to Cereals 2015 where it was on show on the Ryetec stand. Unfortunately there wasn't time to fit the KTS crane before the show however  Mark Harrison of Ryetec kindly invited us down for the day where we were able, for the first time, to cast or eyes over our latest purchase and we weren't dissapointed.

We had designed the machine in our heads over six months ago and Gustrower have been able to manufacture a machine with the capacity, low ground pressure and manoeuvrabilty that we requested.

It comprises the slatted chain drive floor and rear end spreading equipment that Gustrower fit to their other machines and also the twin boggie axle off their chaser bins. On our request they have fitted 750/60 R 30.5 tyres on the front axle and 650/65 R30.5 tyres on the rear axle set to the same outside width as the fronts. This allows the greatest footprint at the narrowest width possible but still allowing the rear axle to reach its tightest turning angle to allow access to some of the narrow gateways and fields we encounter.

The machine has a capacity of 9m3 (approx 15t lime)

Ryetec are going to fit a KTS crane with clam shell and electric joystic controls in the cab next week.

Can't wait to see the finshed project and get testing in the field.

Once again many thanks to Gustrower, Mark Harrison and his team for all their hard work so far.

For more info on Ryetec follow this link: www.ryetec.net

With winter truely upon us we're still busy spreading small amounts of prilled lime and bulk lime as well as routine maintence in the workshop, tractor servicing and minor spreader repairs.

We have recently taken aquesition of a 5t JCB 8045 excavator and this lead to a small workshop project involving the modification of one of our trailers into a purpose built excavator transport trailer also capable of neatly storing all attachmets. For more info visit our digger hire page or our workshop projects page.

Our other winter project is to upgrade our oldest spreader, the Transpread 830. We will be looking to move to a larger capcity spreader equiped with the latest variable rate and GPS technology and possibly fitted with a twin axle. Will we be fitting a crane to it as we have done with all our other spreaders.

Keep watching for our progress.

Finally after a very busy spring and not a week going by where we wern't spreading one thing or another we had chance to do our annual spreader maintenance. Full strip down of each machine and replace wearing parts sees all three lime spreaders ready for action.

A good thing as the season gets off too an usually early start and by the frist week in August were well underway with lime spreading but with customers still demanding fertiliser spreading, grassland subsoiling and track repair its not the usual gentle start to the season.

Lets hope the harvest goes well for all. Next update later in the season.

Spring has been wet but very busy. As usual lots of lime going on ploughing and grass land as well as stubbles.

Subsoiling has seen some new customers coming on board streching from shropshire into Staffordshire and up to Cheshire. Predominantly long term leys or grazing paddocks and average days covering 35acres has seen the sumo GLS become an important area within the business and results thus far look promising.

The new addition is the Bogballe M3W fertiliser spreader and so far it has covererd some 4000acres without a hitch. Its acurracy and large hopper size have seen productivity rise significantly with crops looking lush and even whilst maximising the customers product and also making savings.

Orders for our spreading veins has steadily increased and wear rates are exceeding expectations making then the most cost effective ones in the market. Contact us now to place your order. 

New to our line up is a Bogballe M3W plus with dynamic system control.

It replaces our 10 year old Amazone fertilser spreader which has served us very well.

Using the Bogballe and our experience we can offer the most upto date thechnology incorporating weigh cells, the trend spreading system and automatic gps headland control combing to ensure that we place the correct amount of product in the correct area of the field with minimal to no overlapping.

Add to that the increased hopper capacity then we are able to offer an ever improved timely and cost effective service.

Many thanks to Mike Britton at KRM and their team for supplying the machine.