"It's better to be over-equipped"

To take advantage of good cropping conditions, the Campbells use a New Holland TJ450 tractor and Flexi-Coil 7500 Series air drill.

One large tractor, one large air drill makes efficient system

You can't control the weather, but you can be prepared for it. For Saskatchewan farm manager Sandy Campbell, that means he wants to be well-equipped for his weather-sensitive, primary tasks —seeding and harvesting.

The Campbell family farms a little more than 5,000 acres at Pense, Saskatchewan, beside the TransCanada Highway. The family includes Sandy's father, Lloyd; wife, Lanny; and two children, Joel and Courtney.

Sandy does continuous no-till cropping on the brown, heavy clay soils west of Regina. The fields are square, wide-open, and often cover a full 640 acres. Home is at the center of the Campbell farm, with fields up to 10 miles east or west and six miles north.

Sandy has chosen to diversify the crop base as much as possible, growing crops like durum wheat, peas, lentils, flax, canary seed, canola, mustard and sunflowers.

Sandy Campbell farms in heavy clay soils in Pense, Saskatchewan. He does continuous no-till cropping, so he needs heavy-duty equipment.

"The philosophy I've grown up with, and carry on, is that for getting your work done in a timely manner, it's better to be over-equipped than under-equipped," Sandy says. "If we've got weather issues, we like to be able to maximize the best part of the season for both seeding and harvesting."

Campbell achieves that goal in the spring with a New Holland TJ450 tractor and Flexi-Coil 7500 Series 70-foot "Slim" air drill.

One seeding system

Prior to 2002, Sandy was using two complete seeding systems for the one-pass operation. He seeds into standing stubble.

"It was working, but we wanted to get down to an operation with one unit and one tractor," he says. "On average, we're able to get more acres done in a day by running one machine efficiently than two inefficiently. We try to keep our seeding operation as simple as we can so we can do it as quickly as we can, when the weather is right."

His new system eliminated the second crew, allowing the Campbell family to put in the crop with a crew of three: Sandy, his son, Joel; and brother-in-law, Darrell Walters.

"I concentrate on spraying. Darrell and Joel concentrates on seeding and keeping the seeder supplied with product," he says. "My father throws in his own input from more than 75 years of farming experience."

"We like going down to one large system," Sandy says. The crew was able to get more work done with less footage in the ground (the two systems had measured 96-feet wide), and the crew was less stressed.

Running two seeding systems and a sprayer left workers spread too thinly. For instance, two machines would be stopped so one operator could help another with a job like inoculating peas or lentils.

The Campbell farm is a family operation including (from left) Sandy's son, Joel; his father, Lloyd; Sandy, and his brother-in-law, Darrell Walters.

"Trying to keep all those wheels turning, plus doing the spraying and lining up products, adds up to a lot of stress on the management side," Sandy says. "When you have fewer machines and less workers, it makes a more pleasant atmosphere for all parties. You're actually more efficient, and there's less operator fatigue.

"The seeding system performed extremely well for us this past season," he says. The drill was set for ten-inch row spacing, using three-inch Flexi-Coil spread tips and followed by three-inch packing wheels.

Pulling that 70-foot system in heavy clay, including a 360-bushel air cart with seed and fertilizer, takes a lot of power. Sandy applies his New Holland 450-hp four-wheel-drive TJ450 tractor to the job, seeding up to 600 acres a day.

The TJ Powershift transmission has been very helpful. Although most of the farm has long, gentle slopes, there are some short, steep climbs beside creeks and old waterways. Powershift pulls him through in places like that.

Sandy says, "I'm well-pleased with the tractor and its creature comforts. It's got lots of hydraulic capacity. The visibility is excellent. It burns around 22 or 23 US gallons an hour, while seeding 40 to 50 acres an hour."

Rotary harvest

For the 2003 harvest Sandy traded two New Holland conventional combines for the new CR960 Twin Rotor® machines.

"We're well-pleased with these new CR960s. They do an excellent job for us," he says. "Mechanically, they're excellent. They're built much heavier than they look. The components are heavier. The steel is heavier and thicker. The controls are more user-friendly. There's better visibility from the cab. And it appears the serviceability will be quite a bit less labor intensive."

The rotary combine is gentler on grain, with fewer cracked and broken kernels. That translates into a higher-value product. Depending on the crop, he estimates damage losses are 1% -5% lower with rotary harvesting.

"With our conventional combines, we were getting 6% - 7% ground flax, trying to get it threshed. With the CR, we're in the 1% - 2% range. If you're saving 5% damage on a crop that's worth up to CDN$300 an acre, it adds up in a hurry. That's a lot of money."


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