Richard & Alan Pashley with Michael Peacock.

The performance of the Powerflow table was brilliant"

THE PASHLEY FAMILY

Stainforth Hall, Stainforth

near DONCASTER

The various generations of Pashleys have been farming in the area since the 1920’s. Currently father Alan and 3 sons, Richard, Jonathon and David and grandsons Oliver and Martin, carry on the tradition started by Alan’s father. He started on a small farm at Barnby Dun and would take the barley by horse and cart and canal to the Maltings.

They now farm1800 acres with 1200 of combinable crops, plus potatoes and beet, on land that varies from strong clay to light sand to riverside loam.

They first bought an MF 38 then 2 40RS’s one after the other, each kept for 4 years. They then moved up to a 7274 Cerea for 5 years and have now gone for a 7278 for this year’s harvest.

Richard explains their choice, "We are planning to increase the acreage of rape to about 350 because of the growing demands of biofuel, so last year we ran a trial and swathed half and direct cut half. As a result we have decided to direct cut all the rape this year and needed a combine that could achieve this quickly enough so as not to delay getting into wheat.

We looked at a Claas 570 and the MF 7278 and found that the Massey was as fast as the biggest Claas in rape due to the performance of the 25ft Powerflow table and the rape auger which is brilliant. We had found that the 7274 Cerea combine will do up to 40 tons per hour in wheat and even more on a particularly dry day. We expect a further improvement with the MF 7278 with a larger engine and a 25ft Powerflow table.

The finer straw chopper is now standard on this range and is as good or better than any other on the market and will be particularly benficial for minimum tillage.

We have found the Masseys pretty maintenance free and very reliable over the past three machines. MF now own Valmet so the quality of the engine and all components are of the same high standard and reliability.

If needed we know that P&B’s fitters can be relied on to sort out any little problems," concluded Richard.