Despite the disappointing return on tillage crops presently being experienced, the development of related machinery continues, if only to bring greater efficiencies to the sector in the hope that it will help preserve any profitability going forward.
The Yorkshire manufacturer Grange Machinery is the latest to step forward with an updated design of its 6m Close Coupled Toolbar (CCT), which it will be launching at Agritechnica 2025.
Flexible addition
The idea of this tool is that it fits between the tractor and a drill, or other surface cultivator, to loosen soil at depth before the main implement passes over it.
Presently the tine spacing is 50cm, but the latest version has extra brackets that enables users to alter the spacings of the low disturbance legs to 75cm.
The implement has been developed after requests from farmers, who need a traditional 50cm soil spacing during harvest but also drill maize and other row crops at 75cm in the spring.
Grange Machinery claims that, combined with a mounted or trailed drill, the 6m CCT enables the removal of soil compaction and the precision drilling of maize in a single pass.
Grange caters for maize crops
The company notes that sowing maize in 75cm rows is becoming more common, and the standard 50cm version did not appeal to growers with cereal crops and maize – a combination becoming more frequent thanks to anaerobic digesters.
The 6m CCT is designed to operate with mounted and trailed implements and is fitted with a power take-off (PTO) transmission to allow the use of powered cultivators or drills.
Its uses include shallow subsoiling, correcting compaction in pre-drill and post-harvest passes and, when combined with a packer roller, it creates the perfect pre-drilling seedbed in one pass.
The new CCT is to be launched at Agritechnica, where Grange Farm Machinery will be exhibiting for the first time.
