This year marks the 10th anniversary of the development of the Claydon direct drill, during which time the company has led the way in the development of strip tillage in the UK, which has resulted in a considerable saving in time and establishment cost.
LAMMA holds a special place in the development of the Claydon drill, as it was at LAMMA 2002 that Jeff Claydon first displayed his latest development, and rather like the show itself, the intervening decade has seen the Claydon drill go from strength-to-strength.
It is appropriate that 10 years after its first public showing at LAMMA, as part of its continued growth, Claydon has just returned from displaying at Agritechnica in Germany for the first time. Here, the considerable interest in strip tillage resulted in Claydon receiving enquiries from over a dozen countries, including Russia, the Baltic States, central Europe and Scandinavia.
At this year’s LAMMA show, CLAYDON will be displaying their latest drill, the Hybrid. Alongside this there will also be the new Claydon Straw Harrow, which is an important part in the overall effectiveness of the Claydon System.
Such is the effectiveness of the Claydon System, aside from a considerable reduction in establishment costs, recent trials have shown a 26% increase in wheat yields compared to a conventional plough-based establishment system, helping boost crop returns by £333/ha at current crop values.
The development of the Claydon System was the brainchild of farmer/inventor Jeff Claydon as a means of reducing costs, whilst achieving improved timeliness and crop performance from his heavy clay soils at Wickambrook near Newmarket.
Patented 2-tine strip tilling system
The latest Claydon Hybrid drill is available in four working widths: 3.0m; 4.0m; 4.8m; and 6.0m with power requirements from just 150hp up to 300hp. The Hybrid drill features a high capacity hopper and uses the well proven Accord seed metering unit, controlled using the RDS Artemis control unit, which has mapping capability and allows for manual seed rate adjustment on the move.
The Claydon Hybrid drill is designed for use across all soil types and available with either shear bolt or, for stony soils, hydraulic auto-reset tines. In place of packer wheels that are typically used on similar drills, but can do more harm than good, especially in wet conditions, the Claydon Hybrid uses centrally mounted depth wheels to ensure accurate contour following and that the optimum drilling depth is maintained for even spacing and germination.
Central to all Claydon drills and key to providing the optimum growing environment for seeds is the patented 2-tine strip tilling system.
In developing the Claydon Strip Till System and recognising what would be needed to achieve the best results on both his heavy clay and other soil types, a key component for Jeff Claydon was the need to eliminate compaction below the seed, both for soil drainage but also to provide a free soil structure for root development.
In order to achieve this, the first element in the patented 2-tine system are staggered front-raked tungsten breaker tines that can be set to work at up to 18cm. Following directly in line with each breaker tine is a winged ’A’ blade, which is designed to lift the soil to allow the seeding boot to inject a band of seed directly under the lifted soil. Depending on conditions, typically a 17cm blade is used for most conditions and seed types, but 12cm and 7.5cm wide ’A’ blades are also available for smaller seeds and wetter conditions. A special knife is also available for drilling beans. The seeding tines are quickly and easily changed thanks to the Speed-Loc tine release and fitting mechanism.
One of the greatest strengths of the Claydon Strip Tilling System is the reduction in establishment costs. A considerable saving is achieved due to the fact that routine cultivations are eliminated, with the result that the time taken to establish the crop is about a quarter of a plough based system.
In addition, by only moving the soil immediately surrounding the seed, draught requirement is reduced, so enabling the Claydon drill to be run on a less powerful tractor. Finally an additional bonus is the fact that both on-farm and in trials, there has been a positive increase in overall yields in both oilseed rape and wheat, so providing an additional bonus from increased crop return.
Claydon Straw Harrow
For direct drilling to work properly, effective weed control is essential if the weed burden is to be controlled and crop competition eliminated to ensure optimum germination levels.
Whilst creating a stale seedbed in order to encourage weed seed germination ahead of spraying off is nothing new, this has tended to rely on light cultivations, which can result in uneven weed germination if done too deeply.
The new Claydon Straw Harrow has a working width of 7.50m and is designed to be both quick, and so cheap to operate, and to only stir the top 1.0-2.5cm in order to encourage chitting for more effective herbicide control.
The Straw Harrow consists of five banks of hard-wearing double-coil spring tines, the angle of which can be hydraulically altered in order to achieve a more ’aggressive’ action, and can typically be used at a high operating speed of up to 25 kph, so allowing outputs of around 12ha/hour to be achieved.
