KVERNELAND HEADLAND NEWS
HIGH ACCURACY SPREADING
“The spreader is mind-blowing.” David Barclay, farmer
The switch to a Kverneland Exacta TL GEOSPREAD brought an increase in spreading accuracy along with a larger capacity hopper for GM Barclay & Sons, at Tullo and Townhead farms, Laurencekirk, Aberdeenshire.
“We wanted to improve our spreading accuracy across the farm,” explains David Barclay, pictured, who farms alongside his brother Graeme, cousin Andrew, and their fathers Brian and Kenneth. “Switching to the Exacta TL GEOSPREAD introduced us to automatic section control, which has meant everything we now apply goes in all the right places.” The 2,000-acre family farming business grows a variety of cereals, potatoes, swedes, daffodils and grassland on the east coast of Aberdeenshire, with almost all its fields comprising gradients. “Many fields are quite steep, others are just gently rolling, so having a fertiliser spreader that can cope with this type of terrain is essential,” explains David. “Our preference is to tramline across the slopes, rather than work up and down – and it’s a process that lets us makes full use of the self-levelling capabilities of our two Hillmaster combines.” Now into its third season and operating on 32m tramlines in a range of field sizes from five to 135 acres, David says the GEOSPREAD functionality is a game changer for the business. “The spreader is mind-blowing,” he says. “It doesn’t matter how
steep the gradient, we no longer get any striping. And we’re constantly battling with on-shore winds, though it doesn’t seem to impact the spreader’s performance.” “We do buy good quality fertiliser, and then use the shaker box and the Kverneland spreading charts app to set the machine and simply drive,” he says. “It’s very simple to use and extremely accurate, even at speeds of up to 14kph.” Bought with an IsoMatch Tellus GO terminal, David says that mapping is viewed on the Tellus GO terminal, with the Isobus connectivity played out on the tractor’s terminal. Application rates extend from 100kg/ha when top dressing nitrogen, up to 1,000 kg/ha when preparing seedbeds for potatoes. “Those high rates meant we needed the maximum hopper size, using three extensions,” he says. “We also chose high-lift vanes to future-proof the spreader purchase, and our aim is to move to 36m tramlines when we change our drill from 4m to one with a 6m working width.”
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