Chris McCullough
Profiles a contracting operation opting for tried and tested kit
THE Johnston family from Templepatrick in County Antrim have been contracting for decades, helping other farmers with a huge variety of jobs. William is the third generation to take the helm of the family business, R&W Johnston Contracts, and his father Raymond is still very much involved.
Adopting a policy of ‘keeping things simple’ William prefers to run more older tractors with less technology in his fleet, thereby saving on expensive software and running costs.
“If the tractor operator is any good, then all that software should be in his head,” said William.
“There is too much to go wrong with all this fancy software nowadays which is too costly to fix. Before you know it, the technology is out of date and has been replaced with the latest version which in a way devalues that expensive tractor in terms of resale value.
“I prefer to do things a bit simpler and run older tractors that we can maintain and repair ourselves.”
However, William has a different policy for his implements which he does try to keep up to date.
The Johnstons contracting business was established back in 1926 when Raymond’s father Samuel started doing jobs for neighbours. That work ethic remains true to the Johnston’s today as they have built up quite a customer base and carry out most of the work on a number of customer’s farms all year round.
On the home farm William and family run a 20 cow suckler herd and 120 ewes on their 32ha owned, taking another 70ha rented. They also grow 160 acres of cereals, as well as rearing turkeys for Christmas.
When it comes to tractors William prefers Case IH and associated brands.
As mentioned, he is not one to be sold on the latest technology but more so he will purchase a tractor worth the money when he needs it. His low tractor replacement policy accounts for the number of tractors in the fleet currently standing around 10.
“We recently bought a 2013 Case IH Puma 180 to take the lead role in the business and tackle the bigger jobs on the wagon and mowers,” said Raymond.
“It was purchased purely because we knew the tractor and that it had been well looked after. However, the rest of the tractors are older. Some of them are not so pretty but they do everything we ask of them.
“Our next youngest tractor is six years old. It’s a 2010 Case IH Puma 155 and is a real workhorse tractor. The next youngest is the 2004 Case IH CVX 170 used for the more demanding jobs including power harrowing.
“After that we have a 2003 McCormick 135 fitted with a Massey Ferguson loader; a 2000 Case IH MX 135; a couple of 1997 Case IH 5150s; a 1994 Case IH 5130; a couple of 1990 Case IH 956 models and a 1990 Case IH 1056.
“It’s a fairly old fleet with nothing fancy in it compared to some other contractors, but I have a dedicated job for each tractor and they are all fairly easy to service and maintain. We also have a 1995 New Holland TX32 combine and an older 1978 New Holland 1530 combine with no cab.”
The working year is divided out for the Johnston’s so they can concentrate on seasonal jobs all at once. During the winter time when the slurry ban is imposed the Johnston’s lamb their sheep and carry out excavating work with their JCB JS 130, JCB 3CX and a Komatsu 53P dozer. They also cut hedges, clean ditches and crimp barley.
Come February the main slurry season starts and the Johnston’s use an umbilical slurry system with a range of 2,000 gallon ferry tankers with over hedge booms and a 2,200 Herbst gallon tanker with trailing shoe. As the Johnston base is located in a high density livestock area there is a lot of work for them to do at slurry and silage times.
“It takes us three months to get through the slurry orders,” said William. “We work through a 25 mile catchment area from home and have around 300 regular customers. However, in an area around a three mile radius from home there are 10 other contractors operating so it’s important for us to do a good job every time and retain the customers year on year.”
The slurry season is no sooner finished when William has to start his tillage season; often to the same customers he just carried out all the slurry work for. With a range of equipment from ploughs to seeders, the Johnston’s are well placed for any tillage work requested. They run a four furrow 16 inch plough, a Lemken Hellidore 3m disc, a Lemken harrow and Solitaire drill combi, a Pottinger 5m folding power harrow, and a Samco four row maize drill.
“All told we till around 500 acres per year preparing grassland for reseeding or preparing for crops and around 200 acres with the maize drill,” said William.
The Johnston’s employ two full-time and four part-time staff during the year but an overall shortage of labour forced a change to their silage harvesting system. William added: “We used to run a self-propelled harvester and fleet of trailers putting in clamp silage but a shortage of available labour put an end to that.
“We couldn’t ask drivers to be on standby all the time just for the silage so we decided to opt for a Lely Tigo PR50 silage wagon instead, which suits us much better. One driver can harvest up to 80 acres in a day which suits a lot of our customers with land close to the farm. For the baling we run a 2012 Lely Welger RP435 combi tan- dem axle belt baler on a Gowel chasis and a Lely Tigo PR50 wagon. We also have a Lely 915 rake and a Lely 770 tedder. One other benefit for us is that for the past six or seven years we have carried out field tests of new machinery for Lely and have tested the Lely Tornado 245 and one of their mowers. We make around 25,000 bales a year, ninety per cent of which are wrapped.”
Maintenance
When the various cuts of silage have been taken the season reverts back to slurry and tillage later on in the autumn. And not forgetting his own farm, William has to manage his own cereal enterprise, deciding when to prep his land and the subsequent maintenance of those crops.
“My head is a full encyclopaedia of customer fields, farm lanes and the technical knowhow of my implements,” said William. “We try to keep things as simple as possible here but still managing our costs and outputs as efficiently as possible. The same fuel supplier has delivered diesel to us for the past 20 years. We never have