Saxlingham – Winter turns to Spring

January and February are largely dead months though some soil preparation can be done. I spent the first week of Jan ploughing field 2 – my largest field. It was a long job that fortunately, after making headlands at each end, had a steady up-down rhythm…

…And even though it snowed, the Valtra kept its feet well. Fortunately it was too warm for the snow to settle allowing me to work right through until the job was complete…

The second week was spent applying lime to the field…

…Once again creating headlands before resuming up and down spreading along the length of the field. During this activity with the heavy soil it became obvious that the Claas Arion was struggling. Clearly I should be looking to buy a more powerful tractor for this type of work. At this point I went away to consider carefully which tractor I should buy. That led me to do some detailed real-world research and that, my friends is like falling down Alice’s rabbit hole 😅

As a starting point, I was thinking about getting a Fendt 726 Vario – Quite an expensive machine and I really needed to understand whether that higher cost was justified. This led me to AGCO and the story of how this multinational company came into being. It is a tale of acquisitions starting with the Deutz-Allis and Gleaner brands in the US – companies that were slowly dying under the sweeping success of John Deere. It is a long story that really is worth looking up. The acquisitions continued as AGCO bought companies in Europe to fill gaps in its inventory and to remove its reliance on outside engine suppliers. These included Fendt, Massey Ferguson, Valtra and Finnish engine manufacturer Sisu.

Coming back in game I looked again at the options – I ruled out the New Holland as too expensive. John Deere were off the table too. I have been reading and seeing a lot about their fall from grace with US Farmers. That’s also a story worth reading! Claas were in the reckoning but I ruled out many of the more esoteric brands like McCormick that are uncommon in the UK. The JCB Fastrac series, while innovative, was either not powerful enough or too-expensive.

In the 250-270HP range I was left with the Claas Axion 850, Massey Ferguson 8S.265 and the Fendt 726 Vario. The Claas and the Massey both come in at around £220k whilst the Fendt was playing the numbers anagram at £276k. Why should that be since Massey and Fendt are both AGCO machines – More research!

I found a very interesting video from an AGCO dealer in the US explaining this in detail as he regularly gets customers asking why he stocks both. The answer is ‘General vs Premium’. While both tractors share the same engine and running gear the Massey is aimed at the farmer who wants a basic tractor and will add on any bells and whistles at additional cost when buying. The Fendt is aimed at the farmer who wants all the bells and whistles as standard. It also comes under AGCO’s Loaner protection plan – If your tractor fails and they can’t fix it in a very short timescale the dealer will loan a replacement of the equivalent power to use until your tractor is repaired! This explains the £50k price difference for essentially the same physical tractor. As the Loaner scheme is an irrelevance in the game, you’d only buy the Fendt if you really want one!

In the circumstances I decided in the last week of January to buy the Massey Ferguson 8S.265. I sold my Can-Am runabout as I wasn’t getting enough use out of it. I came very close to selling the Claas Arion too but fortunately common sense prevailed as there are still lots of light tasks it can do starting with being the runabout to check on crops when there’s snow on the ground…

With no work to do for myself or for other farmers I had the time to look at the area behind the houses that forms part of the farm…

…This has potential for perhaps a sheep or cattle pen in the future. There’s also room for a couple of hen houses which might be a good option in the short term as they would not cost too much to set up and could bring a good return on the investment. Greenhouses and Market Gardening are also a possibility though I think I’d need a flatter area for that line of production – still, something more to think about. I wonder if any of the neighbours find Cows mooing at dawn annoying 😅

March brought a return of contract work and I was glad I’d kept the Arion as it’s in its element bale-wrapping…

…even if getting to the field to do the work involves wading through two fords!

The 8S got to do its first work, fertilizing fields for our neighbours…

…Including one on the Estate itself. We also got to do sowing for a neighbour who has been renewing his grass fields…

…After which I had to top up the seeds in the Bednar ready for the next job…

I took on a big hoeing job for which I had to lease the equipment…

…See any weeds? I can’t! Clearly this was a pre-emptive strike 🤣 I had to resort to following the old seeding lines for each pass while allowing for the width of the tool. Fortunately, this is a quick task due to the speed the tool can be run at and we quickly got the job done earning over £17k – It was a very big field with some awkward tree islands to work around!

I closed out the week with some more bale wrapping. Now it’s 16:30 on a Friday and the A140 is busy with drivers heading home for the weekend…

…We’re going to have to wait a while for a gap! 🙄

It’ll soon be time to sow fields 2 and 7 and then we will wait for harvest time! But I know there’ll be work to do for other farmers between. See you all soon 😎👍