Farming with Amy

FARMING WITH AMY

Local farmer, Amy Wilkinson, updates us on life on her Southport farm, Tractors Lit Up, Eric 'The Charmer' and the MF 5S 135

One of the highlights for me since the last issue was taking part in Oliver Harrison's – or Ollyblogs as he now seems to be known – Tractors Lit Up, Christmas convoy around the incredible city that is Liverpool. One hundred festive farmers decked their tractors out in Christmas lights and took part in the mammoth route, all to raise money for Alder Hey Children’s Hospital as well as donating to local food banks. The bitter weather did not deter the public with the entirety of pavements on the route packed full of people, it really was an amazing atmosphere and experience.

Special mentions should go to the J Connolly Agricultural team who went all out and brought snow cannons and search lights.

I on the other hand have been given a theme by Mr YouTube himself.

After Olly mentioned to me that they could do with more female festive farmers in his Christmas convoy and perhaps my 7718 could be pink themed, I had to at least try. One thing I had not taken into account was how difficult it would be to find pink lights over Christmas time, but we managed, and you never know I may have inspired the next generation of female, festive farmers. I would highly recommend getting involved if you can, it’s a brilliant experience raising money for incredible causes.

DEMONSTRATOR REVIEW MASSEY FERGUSON 5S. 135

Tom Clarke rang me up one day and said, “we want to send you a demo to review is there anything in particular that you need”. I replied with “we are a mixed beef and arable farm, we can use anything you send us and it will be put through its paces”.

That’s how Eric ‘The Charmer’, ended up dropping off this Massey Ferguson 5S. 135. As he jumped down off the tractor step, he said “I told them lads it has to be clean because it’s going to a nice young lady”.

I told you he’s a charmer!

I can honestly tell you from the moment it arrived I was so happy it was this tractor. It is no lie that my favourite tractor on our yard is our Massey Ferguson 5445, basically the predecessor to the new 5S range. My reasoning for this is it’s so simple to use, reliable; not once has it ever gone wrong and works every single day even though it gets the least care and maintenance. It can handle pretty much all of what our bigger tractors can do. It may also sound ridiculous, but driving it just makes me happy in a way that no other tractor does, but I got this feeling with the 5S.

These size of tractors are so handy and such work horses. Yes, our 5445’s main job is on our mixer wagon which it does everyday of the year without fault but during busy periods this tractor has worked ground, rolled, pulled our tedder and twin rota rake and in the past two years has been our main carting tractor during September as our other tractors were tied up elsewhere and that is a twelve-year-old tractor pulling 14-ton trailers. I know what you are thinking, it can’t be very fast carting at 40kph, however you make that time back at how fast and easy you can back into sheds with a tractor that can turn on a 20 pence piece, especially in a yard as tight and windy as ours and especially compared to my long bonneted 7718.

The only thing that lets our 5445 down is its comfort, after a few days you’re ready for out of it. However, this is not the case in the 5S. The ride is so comfortable, the cab is incredibly spacious with amazing visibility and every creature comfort you could think of, including to my delight, a heated seat. I could quite happily spend weeks in this in this tractor. It also has all the mod cons such as an ergonomic armrest and is ISOBUS compatible but even with all this, Massey Ferguson have still managed to keep the simplicity I love from our 5445.

It wasn’t like your typical demo where it takes you a day to figure out how everything works, anyone could jump on this tractor and figure it out straight away. It's simple ideas such as the labelled rocker switch for the hydraulic hitch that make so easy to use.

While the 5S was here we really did put it through its paces on both the arable and beef sides of the business with it working ground, bedding cows down and carting muck and bales about on and off road within the week we had it. I would argue that this tractor could handle everything our 5445 can do and more difficult jobs, while still being able to turn on a 20 pence piece.

It could easily be used for jobs like spraying and baling and can come with a front loader which would be incredibly handy on a mixed farm like ours.

So, if you can’t already tell I loved it, it's just the price we may have to negotiate!