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"With my 3m Rapid Super I have no fear that I can go anywhere that a 4 metre combination drill will go - and do more acres in a day" 
says Mr. Nigel Bates, J. Bates & Son, Beggar's Bridge, Coates, Nr. Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire. Nigel Bates and his father John farm some 1,000 acres of arable land, as well as servicing a number of full farm contracts. Working from their base at Beggar's Bridge, they also offer a range of cultivation, drilling, spraying and harvesting services to farmers across a large area of the Cambridgeshire fens, to the east of Peterborough. Having run a 3 metre wide power harrow and drill combination and an ageing 6m air drill for a number of years, Mr. Bates decided to look for a drill which would help him increase productivity, both by increasing working speed, as far as his combination drill was concerned, and by reducing the amount of seedbed cultivations required in front of the 6m air drill. "With the present state of farming, it is a very obvious thing to say how important it is contain costs, both from our own farming point of view and in order to keep our contract rates competitive," says Nigel Bates. " With this in mind I started looking at a replacement for our drills in September last year and uppermost in my mind was that our cropping often meant that we were faced with drilling wheat very late in the Autumn, after sugar beet or potatoes. I therefore needed a drill which would work well in the widest possible range of conditions" "We had a couple of demonstrations and one of them was with a 4 metre Vaderstad Rapid air-drill. They both worked well in the bone dry conditions but when I asked both companies if they would come back to demonstrate in wet conditions, later in the Autumn, only Vaderstad accepted the challenge. I was, however, persuaded that the 3m Rapid Super would be more suited to mv requirements than a 4 metre air-drill." "In the last week of November, we still had 120 acres of wheat to drill after root crops and soil conditions were really bad. A lot of the land had been left in nice order, ready to drill, before we got stuck into potato harvesting but, by the time we had finished the potatoes, it was very wet. I am pretty certain that on seeing these conditions, Mark, my local Vaderstad man, thought we would struggle, but he showed us how to calibrate the drill, set us off and left it with us to experiment. At first we drilled straight into the undisturbed surface that had been cultivated several weeks earlier. Then we ploughed an area and drilled straight on top of the ploughing. We eventually decided to plough and follow with one shallow pass of a power harrow, at high a speed, just to level and firm the top. With dual wheels on the tractor and a drawbar packer on the drill we then produced a firm, pretty good seedbed." "Within a week we were drilled up and as the crop emerged I was amazed to see how even it was. By Spring it was not possible to tell the difference between any of the cultivations in the field where we first started to use the box-drill. This has convinced me that we have made the right choice and that the drill will go in a really wide range of soil conditions. As far as productivity is concerned I now have no worries, because this last spring we used it, with a TM165 tractor, to drill over 110 acres of peas, comfortably doing 40 acres a day." "In the future we will go down the min-till route much more, not just to save cost, but because we have hammered our land to death with power harrows. A min-till regime will help to restore soil structure. You cannot afford to go out and spend thousands of pounds on a drill that won't fit your system; the Vaderstad Super is versatile and fits our system ideally. That is why I believe that the Vaderstad drill will out perform any 4 metre combination drill, in virtually all conditions."
"After my first full season with the drill, I have been delighted with the way it has established my crops, so far, the Rapid Super has exceeded all my expectations" 
says Mr. Willy Ryle, South Acton Farm, Felton, Morpeth, Northumberland. Northumberland farmer Mr. Willy Ryle, who farms some 800 acres of widely varying soils around Felton, near Morpeth, the purchase of a new Vaderstad Rapid Super seemed to be something of a luxury for his 500 acres of combinable crops. "I thought that the drill was a bit of a luxury purchase at the time, but I had decided I needed to adopt a different concept so that the drilling could be done in a smaller window," says Mr. Ryle. "For several seasons I had been looking at drills to replace my combination machine. My first idea was to go for a three metre Vaderstad air drill, but I was being strongly advised that the gravity-drill would be a better machine for my method of working and soil conditions." "I had demonstrations of a number of different drills and because Vaderstad no longer offered a three metre air drill, I had no choice but to have a demonstration with the box-drill in September 2001," recalls Mr Ryle. "My local dealer only had the demonstration drill available for a short time, so, despite there being a very wet spell at the beginning of the month, we had to take our chance. On the Friday before the demonstration, we had one and a half inches of rain. On the Saturday it was much too wet to work, so we calibrated the drill in the hope that the conditions would improve on the Sunday. The conditions were far from ideal that day, but we decided to go for it, despite the fact that there were areas of the field I would not have tried to drill with the combination unit. That night we had another inch and a half of rain and I was pretty sure that the crop would not come to anything. I was wrong, it came and it made a good crop too." "Although I am not a fan of min-till for cereals, this experience convinced me that, with the Vaderstad drill, min-till was the way to go for rape. Some four or five days earlier soil conditions would have been ideal, but the fact that the drill worked so well in these poor conditions meant that we had a much bigger working window than I first thought. I was so impressed with the overall performance of the Vaderstad Super that we took delivery of a new one in June 2002." "Our soil types can vary from black sand to yellow clay, sometimes in the same field. Nevertheless, the Super takes it all in its stride, because it is so firm going through light to heavy land. Depth control is precise and the discs are good at coping with surface trash. The drawbar mounted press wheels not only firm the soil between the tractor wheels they also help maintain a uniform working level." "Using a 140hp tractor we have been averaging 12 to 14 kph, doing between 6 and 8 acres an hour depending on field size. The faster you go the better the drill seems to perform. I know that I am getting more output from the drill than other people using larger machines, because the balance of the width to the horsepower means that I can travel 20% faster and I can go in much worse conditions, on inclines and lighter soils, where a bigger machine would take more pulling, traction-wise. In addition, fuel consumption has been reduced by almost half, compared to our old combination drill behind a similar sized tractor." "After my first full season with the drill, I have been delighted with the way it has established my own crops and the contract work it has attracted has meant that we have drilled a total of 1,800 acres of rape, wheat, beans and winter and spring barley this past year; it really has exceeded all my expectations."
"The Rapid Super has enabled us to greatly reduce crop establishment costs. Its flexibility means that we can drill all our cereal and forage crops with the same machine." 
says Mr. Phil Huxley, H.S.Huxley Farms, New House Farm, Brineton, Shifnal, Shropshire. The ease of operation and versatility of the Rapid Super has greatly reduced labour and running costs for Mr. Phil. Huxley, who farms 900 acres from his base at New House Farm, Brineton, near Shifnal. In addition to some 550 acres of cereals the farm also grows 350 acres of grass and maize for a 240 cow dairy herd. Before finally settling for the Rapid Super, Mr. Huxley had, like many of his farming neighbours, been looking at ways of reducing establishment costs for his cereal crops. Mr Huxley takes up the story. "In the past we were running two tractors and ploughs in front of the drill. This was not only expensive in terms of labour and machinery, it also restricted the amount of drilling I could do in a day. I then decided to buy a power harrow and drill combination, to cut out as much ploughing as possible. We worked like this for a few years, but it became increasingly obvious this was still not the best answer, firstly, because it was quite slow. Secondly, my tractor could pull the machine, despite it being very heavy, but the tractor was having difficulties lifting it in and out of work and turning on the headlands. At this point I was not sure which way to go next," admits Mr. Huxley. "It was then that my local dealer, Rea Valley Tractors, suggested that if I did not want to go back to ploughing, I should try the Vaderstad Rapid Super. To cut a long story short, we tried the drill and bought it two seasons ago. We have not looked back since." "I've tried drilling in all sorts of conditions. I've drilled early barley straight into stubbles after barley, without any cultivation. I've also drilled into stubble following a pan-buster, as well as wheat straight into ploughing and also straight into stubble. I can safely say that I have not been dissatisfied with any of the crops at harvest." "The system I have now settled on is to cultivate very shallow, straight after harvest, to get the weeds to germinate. I then burn off and drill. I only plough after maize. Overall, it is a much quicker system than the combination drill and I use a good 40% less fuel. The drill is very easy to calibrate and, unlike some drills, it remains accurate. In addition, the size of the hopper means that I am not stopping to fill up every few minutes." "As well as cereals, I drill 150 acres of grass and 80 acres of maize with the drill too. It is brilliant on grass seeds, it levels and firms the ground and the grass emerges very evenly. I have even successfully direct drilled grass seed into worn out patches in permanent pasture land." "When I first bought the Rapid Super it seemed to be a bit of a luxury for an operation such as ours, but the speed of drilling, coupled with the fact it will drill any of our crops, into almost any type of seedbed, means that it has become an indispensable part of the farm's equipment."
"The Rapid Super is very versatile, because it drills almost any type of seed, into any surface, using direct drilling through to conventional drilling techniques" 
says Mr. Frank Gill, Farm Manager, Culworth Ground Farm, Thorpe Mandeville, near Banbury, Oxfordshire. The arrival of the Vaderstad Rapid Super at Culworth Ground Farm in the summer of 2002 marked the culmination of Farm Manager, Mr. Frank Gill's exhaustive period of evaluation of the potential benefits it could bring to the farm's crop establishment regime. Up to this point the principle machine used for sowing a large proportion of the 600 or so acres of combinable crops had been a 4m power harrow and drill combination. For a few years prior to this, Mr Gill had been concerned both by a seemingly relentless build-up of slug problems and a growing awareness of the possible dangers associated with transporting a wide and heavy piece of mounted equipment along local roads. "In recent years we have been experiencing more wet drilling seasons and I have become very much aware of a build-up of slugs," Mr. Gill explains. "In my mind, I began to associate this to a degree with the use of our power harrow and drill combination. For, although we were getting the work done, we were leaving an almost puffy seedbed, which did not inhibit slug activity much, if at all. My second concern was that our 4 metre mounted drill combination was very heavy and did not fold for transport. In country areas the roads tend to be narrow and with the expansion going on around Banbury there has been an increase in traffic. Even though we always have someone out in front of the unit to warn oncoming traffic, I was becoming concerned enough to want to remove the problem altogether." "We were no strangers to Vaderstad because our other farm, in Dorset, had been successfully using a Rapid air-drill for three years. Shortly after we got the drill in Dorset, I had arranged for a demonstration of the Rapid Super at Culworth Ground Farm. During the demonstration we direct drilled an acreage of rape and we were also able to conventionally drill another patch. The resulting crop was very satisfactory." "The following year, I managed to persuade my local Vaderstad dealer to let me try the drill again, this time on wheat. Unfortunately, just as I got the drill on the farm it rained heavily and, because of the pressure of demand for demonstrations from other farmers, I was forced to drill the wheat direct into the ploughing in what I thought were far from ideal conditions. However, it went very well and I was pleased with the result. Fearing that I might test the patience of both Vaderstad and my local dealer if I tried to farm on demonstrations for another year, I set about convincing my boss that it was the drill for us." "In the summer of 2002 we took delivery of our own machine and we have not looked back since. In 2001 we bought a 5 metre Vaderstad Carrier which works very well in front of the drill on rape stubbles. It has gone a long way towards eliminating the use of power harrows when preparing the seedbed for rape. We also use the Carrier to knock down ploughing in front of the drill, which makes the operation so much quicker and saves a lot of fuel too." "As far as moving the equipment on the road is concerned it has transformed the operation. In addition to getting the combination drill to the field, we also had to take a trailer carrying the bags of seed and a forklift to empty them into the drill. Now, because the box-drill has such a large capacity seed hopper, I can easily and comfortably travel to and from the fields to fill up in the yard." "Although I don't have any firm figures to back it up, I am sure that we are using little more than half the fuel we used to use to run the combination system. The Rapid drill is also much easier to use and very easy to calibrate for a wide range of seeds and, once set, the seed rate remains accurate all day long." "During our first season the Rapid Super has lived up to my expectations and I believe that, as we begin to better understand its full capabilities, we will find additional features which help us to further reduce our crop establishment costs."
"Compared to our old power harrow and drill combination, we can get up to half as much again done in a day with the Vaderstad drill" 
says Mr. David Ashton, Casks Farm, Bull Drove, Wrangle, near Boston Lincolnshire. The need to cover the ground more quickly was the principle reason for the decision being made to replace a 3 metre power harrow and drill combination with the Vaderstad Rapid Super on Mr. David Ashton's 720 acre skirt land farm to the east of Boston, in South Lincolnshire. "Although we were happy with the job our 3 metre combination drill was doing, we needed to increase our output," explains Mr. Ashton. "One of our choices was to buy a new 4 metre wide power harrow and drill combination, but that would have meant having to buy a much bigger tractor too. The alternative was to buy a Vaderstad 3m Super which could be used behind our existing 100hp tractor." "In the spring of 2001, the decision was made in favour of the Vaderstad drill and one of its first jobs was to drill a crop of late vining peas. This is now our third season drilling vining peas and we have grown to fully appreciate one of the major benefits of the drill, which is that the disc coulters can be accurately set to maintain the drilling depth required to ensure that the peas are placed into moisture." "In each of the past two autumn drilling seasons we have drilled some 450 acres of wheat and 150 acres of rape. Although the original 100hp four cylinder tractor was capable of pulling the drill, we have recently replaced it with a 125hp model, which is now well boss of the job, particularly when we are working with the front discs at a good depth. The drill also works well if there is straw and trash on the surface, particularly when drilling rape in a min-till situation." "When we first bought the drill we did not include the drawbar packer in the specification. However, we have recently fitted one of these units and I am sure that it has made the drill pull easier and more level. From the engineering point of view the build quality is excellent." "We have certainly achieved our aim of increasing output, because we are doing up to twice as much work in a day as we did with the old combination unit and fuel consumption is much lower too. I also feel that with a few more changes to our cultivation techniques we can gain even more benefits from using the Vaderstad Super."
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