Claydon has introduced and will be displaying at Cereals, a new dedicated oilseed rape drill - the V Rape Speed.
This latest addition to the Claydon drill range is designed to enable growers to quickly and cost-effectively establish crops of high-yielding oilseed rape, whilst at the same time profiting from all the well-proven benefits of the Claydon Strip-Tilling system.
The Claydon V Rape Speed drill uses the patented Claydon Seeding Technique to allow growers to establish oilseed rape directly into uncultivated stubble, so ensuring that soil structure is improved and essential moisture retained.
This was particularly evident in the rapid germination and growth of Claydon drilled crops in last autumn’s dry conditions.
The new V Rape Speed drill has a working width of 5.0 metres, folding to 2.8m for transport. It comprises of a ’V’ frame fitted with the patented 2-Tine Strip Till legs mounted at 60cm row spacing. This wider row spacing and high clearance ensures plenty of room for trash to freely flow.
In place of the conventional seed hopper, the V Rape Speed drill is fitted with a Delimbe T15 120 litre seed hopper, controlled using a Delimbe GPS control unit, which helps to considerably reduce weight..
By using the well-proven 2-Tine Seeding technique, the leading tine effectively breaks the soil and creates a drainage channel below the seeding zone that allows the plant roots to freely grow, so encouraging vigorous growth.
Following the breaker tine is a second leg fitted with a winged ’A’ blade that lifts the soils and creates a ’Y’ shaped, 18cm wide band into which the oilseed rape seed is distributed either side of the drainage channel.
One of the major benefits of the new V Rape Speed drill is its reduced weight when compared with other hopper and cultivator based drilling systems.
When working to a similar depth as the front breaker tine on the V Rape Speed, which can be set to work at up to 18cm, typically a 3.0m wide cultivator with breaker tines will require at least a 300hp tractor to pull it. By comparison the new V Rape Speed, with its 5.0m working width, has a power requirement of only 180-200hp.
Thanks to its wide working width, typically working at a forward speed of 8-12km/h, the V Rape Speed drill can comfortably drill about 40ha of oilseed rape a day.
Because the patented 2-Tine Seeding technique only moves the soil immediately around the seed band, and leaves the area between each band uncultivated, this not only helps reduce power requirement but combined with the high output, this has resulted in typical tractor fuel consumption figures of just 6.5-7.0 litres/ha. Likewise the wearing parts cost at only ’2.50/ha is also considerably lower compared to a conventional deep-working cultivator.
By combining all the benefits of improved soil structure, timeliness, moisture retention and increased yields from the Claydon 2-Tine Seeding Technique, with its reduced weight and high output, the new Claydon V Rape Speed drill ensures that oilseed rape crops can be quickly established at minimum cost into an ideal seedbed.
This ensures rapid, high germination to give a well-established strong plant, with quick initial growth to reduce pigeon damage and that will over-winter well to go on to provide optimum yields at reduced establishment cost.
