The Subsoiler.
A three-leg low-disturbance subsoiler. The most misused machine in British arable farming and we have misused it ourselves. £180 a day, machine only, collected from here.
The specification.
The machine
- Legs
- 3, low-disturbanceAt 750 mm spacing
- Working depth
- 250–450 mmAnd almost nobody needs 450
- Working width
- 2.25 mWhich is one tractor width, deliberately
- Tractor required
- 200 hpAnd it will use all of it at depth
In work
- Linkage
- Three-point, category IIIHeavy, and it wants a stable rear end
- Packer roller
- FittedRemovable, and it should not be removed
- Output, realistic
- 1.2–2 ha/hourDepth dependent, and depth is fuel
- Fuel
- 18–26 l/haThe highest of anything on this list, by a distance
Figures are from the machine itself rather than from a brochure. Where the two disagree, the brochure is wrong.
What it fits.
A 200 hp tractor on category III linkage with front weights. It is a heavy, slow, expensive job and there is no light version of it.
If you are not certain your tractor will do it, ring before you hitch up rather than after. We have had two people arrive with the wrong linkage category and one with no air brakes, and all three of those were avoidable phone calls.
Who has actually used it.
Named because a machine with a history is easier to trust than a machine with a specification. Where somebody broke something, it says so.
This farm
Twice, and one of those was a mistake we have written about
A neighbour at Chadlington
On headlands only, which is the correct use
Charlie Ireland
To dig a pit first and prove there was a pan, which is the correct order
What it is bad at. It is bad at being used without evidence, which is how it is almost always used. Subsoiling a field that has no compaction pan costs about twenty-two litres of diesel a hectare, damages soil structure, and achieves nothing at all. We did exactly that across sixty acres in 2022 because the field looked tired, and a spade would have told us in four minutes that the problem was eleven centimetres down and not a pan at all. Dig a hole first. Every time.
When it is free.
Half days are two thirds of the day rate, because the loading, the walk round and the clean take the same time either way.
Tuesday8 September
Thursday10 September
Monday15 September
Pick a time and we will hold it for ten minutes. Hold that day
This is a demonstration build. Nothing here books anything, no deposit is taken and no card details are collected at any point. Prices are indicative and are published so the arithmetic can be argued with.
The terms, in four lines.
£180 a day
Machine only. No fuel, no operator.
Your insurance
Hired-in plant cover, shown before it leaves.
Owner keeps first call
If it is our weather, it comes home.
Back clean and full
Or it comes back with an invoice.
The other seven.
The 6m Tine Drill
Six metres of tine drill, bought in a fit of optimism in 2021 and used for about nine days a…
The Cambridge Rolls
Twelve point three metres of ring rolls. The cheapest thing to hire here and the one with the longest waiting…
The 3m Topper
A three-metre flail topper for margins, paddocks and the parts of a field a combine is never going to see.
The Bale Wrapper
A trailed round-bale wrapper. Nobody hires this because they want to. They hire it because the forecast changed.
The Post Knocker
A tractor-mounted post driver. The single most useful item on this list and the one most likely to hurt somebody.
The 16t Grain Trailer
Sixteen tonnes, sprung drawbar, commercial axles and a working tarpaulin, which is rarer than it should be.
The Hedge Cutter
A six-and-a-half metre reach flail hedge cutter. Legally unusable for six months of the year, which is the most important…
Before you hire anything.
Insurance, briefings, and the two things we will not hire out at all.
