Quadtrac overcomes the challenges of poor autumn weather

The recent addition of a 580 Quadtrac has played a large part in enabling Hertfordshire based farmer, Ian Watson, to finish autumn cultivations despite challenging weather and difficult ground conditions.

Ian and his brother Michael own Greens Farm, in Buntingford, where they manage 2,500 acres of arable crops, incorporating 1,500 acres of milling wheat, beans, barley and a small acreage of oats. This year, the brothers have moved over to a controlled traffic system on the farm, with the objective of reducing soil compaction and improving machinery fuel efficiencies.

“In the past, we found that wheeled tractors churned up the ground quite badly, especially when pulling heavy kit and doing tight turns out in the field. In combination with our controlled traffic system, we just don’t get this type of damage now with the Quadtrac and soil compaction isn’t a concern. Thanks to the tracks, we have been able to get out on ground this autumn that we wouldn’t have been able to with a wheeled machine, and we actually managed to get all our drilling done and dusted by 28th October this year, which was a great result considering the conditions.”

“We work across a lot of heavier, clay soil, so maintaining drainage is a big thing for us, and the 580 easily tows along our twin-legged mole drainer. The seed drill we use has been converted down to 10.5 metres wide but is still a big bit of kit to handle. This autumn, even though ground conditions were slippy and wet, the Quadtrac just kept on going and could maintain good traction when pulling the drill”.

“Since using the 580 I have also noticed a significant reduction in our overall fuel consumption when doing field work; for example, we averaged 30 litres per hectare for two passes with a cultivator and then drilling. It has done the vast majority of the work on farm this year and only used 30,000 litres of fuel – previously fuel usage would have been much more than this.”