Groundswell founder upgrades intercropping operation with vibrating seed cleaner

Arable

21st June 2023

Having come across JK Machinery’s JCM VibroMAX 10133 vibrating sieve cleaner at Groundswell last year, event founder John Cherry has decided to invest in the machine to fulfill needs for greater crop separation and cleaning efficiency as he moves to increase intercropping at Lannock Manor Farm.

Mr Cherry has been experimenting with intercropping for around eight years, as part of the regenerative and agroecological practices at his Hertfordshire farm. To date, he has mainly been growing peas and rape as both were relatively easy to separate and clean using the old pre-cleaner.

However, as he is now looking to increase the number of crops in his intercropping operation, the need has arisen to upgrade current cleaning and grading capabilities in order to add value to the harvested crops.

“Mono-culture does not happen in nature and so we are planning to increase intercropping into our crop rotations, to help improve soil health by increasing water and nutrient utilisation, driving up pest and disease resistance and weed suppression,” he explained.

Following discussions with McArthur Agriculture, a UK dealer for JK Machinery, Mr Cherry took the decision to invest in a VibroMAX.

“We had previously been using an old two-sieve pre-cleaner to separate crops but we often had to put crops through it twice, and one of the crops would still not be as clean as we wanted,” he noted.

The JCM VibroMAX 10133 is a triple decked machine equipped with three vibrating sieves which clean and separate crops to a high standard in a single pass, each crop being aspirated individually, via twin aspirators, to ensure the best results.

The performance of the JCM 10133 range of cleaning and grading equipment can be controlled through the changing of sieves and adjustment of several process variables, including machine angle and vibration frequency.

Having acquired the machine, Mr Cherry plans to grow wheat and beans, OSR and peas and peas and beans, and has ambitions for each field to contain two or more, combinable or non-combinable crops.

“A lot of farmers are looking at intercropping trials, which can add complexity to crop rotation. However, it does allow savings to be made on inputs and the combination of potentially smaller yields of both crops can deliver a larger yield than if just one crop had been grown,” he added.

“Intercropping is the future as it becomes an integral part of regenerative farming. McArthur Agriculture, with its range of cleaning and grading equipment, can help farmers to make the transition to intercropping by providing the cleaning and grading machines to quickly and easily separate different crops, increasing their value post-harvest,” Mr Cherry concluded.