Charlie with the Robo Flail is busy this week, clearing scrubby banks near Castle Combe as part of a grassland restoration project.
Robo flail out busy this week clearing scrubby banks near Castle Combe
Category: Machinery
Tractor Run on Sunday – part of the annual Tractor n’Tinsel Run 2025 in Devizes
Tractor run about to leave to join everyone else in Devizes as part of the annual Tractor N’ Tinsel Run 2025 on Sunday 21st December.
We were delighted to support Devizes Young Farmers Charity Tractor run on Sunday – a great turnout.
“The first pod included many vintage tractors before the big modern beasts arrived. Devizes Young Farmers’ volunteers, particularly those too young to travel by tractor collected money from the crowd for this year’s chosen charities (Wiltshire Air Ambulance, Bugs Fund(Burns Unit Group Support) and Salisbury Hospital’s Star Appeal). It’s not too late to make a contribution, click here for the Just Giving page.”
Thanks to Tristan, George, Mark & Charlie
The tractors in action
These were the tractors we used:
MB trac 1000 (green)
The oldest in the fleet, first registered in 1985, so very much a vintage machine.
Built by Mercedes but no longer in production.
This was the one we rebuilt the engine on back in April – read our link to our post here
Valtra 121
Fitted with a front loader and first registered 2012
This was the tractor seen on the wire unroller putting up the deer fence recently
Used in a multitude of different tasks on a daily basis
Valtra 234 Active (blue)
This is the most modern one – registered new in 2021
Used to move large machinery to site
Colour-coded front toolbox with integrated fuel tank – blue
Valtra 8450 (red)
Date of first registration 2006
Nearly 20 years old, so almost vintage
Fitted with a rooftop crane to move timber away from felling operations with its timber trailer
Transporting and unrolling several strands of barbed wire at once
Meet our new small but handy fencing trailer for transporting and unrolling several strands of barbed wire at once, saving time and energy. There’s also room for tools and all the bits and bobs you need for fencing. It is a one-off bespoke fencing trailer supplied by GA Trailers Ltd in N Ireland and we feature on their Facebook page here:
Drone footage of the solar farm project near Melksham
This drone footage follows on from the earlier posts by Tristan and Toby, who have been fencing on the Solar Farm Project site in Melksham over the past few months.
We were tasked with erecting 13,000m of fencing around 16 separate compartments.
The site looks very different now – this footage taken just before the main construction works commences.
Click here to view one of our earlier posts and a video from last December for comparison.
Then we were unrolling Solonet deer wire/tensioner with Tornado 450 m rolls of deer netting – making life a little easier.
Biodiversity Net Gain – installing rabbit fencing
Installing rabbit fencing to protect a young hedge near Ramsbury
This bank does not look steep in the pictures, but Alex and Tristan will tell you otherwise!
We used our Protech Evo3* for this project, given the steep ground. Our Evo Compact would not have been sufficiently stable and could have tipped over.
The rabbit netting is erected with a turnout at ground level and then pegged to the ground to stop the rabbits from burrowing underneath. In all, it was approx. 600m on very hard ground.
* The Evo 3 is the largest in the Protech range, with a machine weight of 6.5 tons and needs to be delivered on a low loader. But even though a larger machine, it gives a lighter footprint than the Compact, with a ground pressure of 2.27PSI. It has a 500kg hammer weight. Each track itself is 500mm wide, and the tracks can be fully extended to 3.3m, giving greater stability on steep ground”.
Check our our BNG Services here
Scrub Clearance with the Robo Flail
The Robo flail clearing paths alongside the River Test
Our project here on this world-famous chalk stream was to clear the paths alongside the riverside for access and for fishermen.
From Wiki: “The River Test is a chalk stream in Hampshire. Much of the Test is a 438-hectare (1,080-acre) biological SSSI Site of Special Scientific Interest.[1][3] The river is used for fly fishing for trout from its source to its tidal limit”
For more scrub and mulch info, please click here
New Hybrid Hilux
Yesterday’s post was about the oldest machine on the fleet which was built 40 years ago this year and is still going strong…
This is the latest Hybrid Hilux to join the fleet this week; this makes no 6 !
Not sure it will still be here in 2065! Great service from Kennet Signs as usual.
Runway clearing at Lee-on-Solent
Runway clearing at Lee-on-Solent
Early start for Tad this week to get weeds treated at Lee-on-Solent in Hampshire before the runway opens.
Nice visit from an iconic bird! Part of a Victory Festival & Air Display at featuring vintage aircraft, and other events.
For full info on our weed control services, please visit this link
Our Seppi Forestry Mulcher dealing with heavy and dense vegetation
Tidy Friday: mulching an area next to a security fence near Larkhill. Our Robo Flails are great, but the Seppi Mulcher is better here and deals with heavy and dense vegetation with ease.
An older but very efficient workhorse in our fleet, and built to last.
Robo flail overlooking Bath Feb 2025
It was nice to see the sunshine yesterday; Tad was out with the robo flail overlooking Bath, to clear some large bramble.
7th Feb 2025
