Burke milks 330 cows on a 190ha dairy farm on volcanic soil-based rolling hill country 40 minutes north of Dargaville.
The heavy soil can be difficult to farm in winter and often comes into spring with a degree of soil compaction, especially as Burke’s herd and replacements are all wintered on the property.
Burke uses cropping to aerate the heavily compacted soil and puts 15HA of the property into brassica and turnips every year.
“Once you get into maize you need to a lot of other people, with turnips and brassica you can just jump on the tractor yourself.”
Burke previously used discs, a rotary hoe and a spring tine to prepare paddocks for seed, but two seasons ago he bought a 9-tine Fieldline Ripper from Glenbrook Machinery in Pukekohe (now sold by Fieldmaster) because he felt the discs were not resolving soil compaction issues enough. He has been able to slash the time spent on the tractor preparing soil.
“I had to double overlap with the discs and then do a run back the other way. With the ripper I just go over the paddocks once, I think the ripper would cut down the time I needed to spend on the tractor by 60-80 hours per year.”
Burke has used just the ripper and spring tine cultivators to prepare soil for a very late crop of turnips with a good crop, but says he has got a better follow-up grass growth after also using a rotary hoe.
While the Jumbo Buster Ripper can work soil with all nine tines, Burke says it was easy to remove two of the tines to allow it to be more feasible for his 90HP Case CX-80 to tow it through the heavier volcanic soil.
“The guys at Glenbrook thought I would probably need to take off four tines for the tractor, but if the soil is right and you don’t have too much matted kikuyu then my 90HP tractor doesn’t have too many problems with it. Seven tines actually provide a good spacing for this type of soil. It rips it all open while letting it get worked over really good.”
The machine’s versatility is further expanded by its mount for a hydraulic toplink, which according to Burke, allows for better fine tuning while working.
“If the soil is thicker you can raise-up the ripper without too much effort, it makes the implement really versatile. If you run over a mat of kikuyu then you just need to lift it up, there’s no need to back the tractor up and start again.”
Burke plans to retrofit a crumbler-roller to the deep ripper to further speed up the cultivation process.
“I think the crumbler-roller could replace the rotary hoe and I could just use the deep rippers and a spring tine to prepare ground.”
Tel: 09 237 1500
