Nohoval Contracting Services Ltd is a leading agricultural contracting operation which has been providing a complete service to farmers in and around Kinsale, Co. Cork for almost 60 years.
There is never a dull moment for Ray Quinn who runs the contracting business and is also a tillage farmer who grows winter and spring barley, winter and spring wheat, beet and maize on his 350-acre holding, about half of which is rented. Ray supplies his beet and maize to local dairy farmers, and his barley and wheat to Dairygold in Minane Bridge.
Located on the south coast and near the villages of Nohoval and Belgooly, Nohoval Contracting Services was set up in the mid-1960s by Ray’s father Harry, who is still involved. Ray is also supported by three full-time staff, including his nephew Christopher Quinn, and a similar number who help out at busy times as well as his wife Marie and children Emma, Judy and Raymond. “Emma is doing her Leaving Cert and is showing a keen interest in the business. Hopefully, there will be another generation of us involved in contracting,” the affable Cork man says.
Nohoval Contracting Services is a one-stop shop for all your agri contracting needs, from ploughing, power harrowing, cultivating, reseeding, spraying, fertiliser and lime spreading to slurry and dung spreading, pit and baled silage, corn and maize harvesting, beet pulling, hedge cutting and digger work. The family business continues to go from strength to strength by providing a professional, efficient and competitive service.
“I took over the business in 2006 from my father who had started out cutting silage in the summer and spreading muck in the winter when there were no restrictions,” Ray explains.
“We’ve come a long way since then and have expanded a good bit over the last five or six years when we have bought a new tractor every year. We cut about 2,500 acres of pit silage, make 6,000 bales of silage, a further 6,000 bales of straw, cut 700-800 acres of corn, 400 acres of maize and pull about 300 acres of beet a year. We also spread lime for local farmers which comes from Roadstone in Ballygarvan.”
Committed to providing superior service and complete customer satisfaction, Nohoval Contracting Services have an array of machinery to carry out your work quickly and efficiently, providing you with value-for-money and an alternative to investing in your own expensive equipment. The contracting firm’s success can be attributed to the knowledge, experience, skill and expertise of its staff as well as the quality of its machinery. Ray and his highly-skilled and highly-motivated team deliver the value and quality farmers expect from their agricultural contracting partner.
Ray runs a nine-strong fleet of Case and New Holland tractors. He has three Case 240s, a 185 and a 160, while his New Hollands consist of a T230, a T245, a TM165 and a TM150. The newest tractor is a 221-reg Case 240 which was purchased from Lynch McCarthy in Little Island. His local New Holland dealer is Mc & S Agrisales in Ballincollig. “Both of them provide an excellent back-up service,” he enthuses.
The contractor’s grass machinery includes a new John Deere 9500 forage harvester that was bought from Farm Power in Cork (he also has a John Deere 7750 on standby), McHale Fusion Plus and McHale 560 balers, a Tanco bale wrapper, a Krone rake, a John Deere 830 trailed mower and a John Deere 310 front mower, a New Holland W170D loader and a Volvo L70D loader. For slurry, he has an Abbey 2,750-gallon tanker with trailing shoe, a HiSpec 2,500-gallon tanker with dribble bar, two NC agitators (pump and propeller) and a HiSpec XL1250 horizontal disc muck spreader.
In terms of tillage equipment, Nohoval Contracting Services runs two Kverneland five-furrow reversible ploughs, a HE-VA Cambridge roller, a Lemken One Pass seeder, a Kverneland disc harrow, an A1 Engineering levelling board, a Samco maize seeder and an Armer Salmon beet seeder. Ray also operates a pair of New Holland TX65 combine harvesters, a Bredal K105 lime spreader, a McConnel P65 hedge cutter, an Armer Salmon single row beet puller, an Amazone crop sprayer and a New Holland 210 digger.
In addition, he has an assortment of Smyth trailers for drawing silage, grain, maize and beet as well as a NC low loader. The Smyth trailers and Amazone sprayer were supplied by Corbetts of Mallow.
All machines are maintained and upgraded on a regular basis to avoid downtime.
“While we’re able to do some of the maintenance ourselves, the main dealers look after the bigger jobs and the machines that are under warranty. Derry Quinn and Aidan Hurley supply us with most of our parts,” adds Ray, who is a member of Carrigaline IFA.
There is no such thing as a quiet time for this highly-regarded family business which will work around the clock at peak times to keep clients happy. Slurry spreading, ploughing and sowing take precedence in the early part of the year, followed by silage cutting during the summer months. After that comes crop harvesting, beet pulling, hedge cutting and more slurry spreading.
“We have the same customers as when we started and have picked up many new ones along the way. We have stood the test of time by giving our customers exactly what they want. They know that we will always go the extra mile for them.
“Our customer-base stretches from the sea to Cork Airport, Kinsale and Crosshaven. We travel north, east and west. We can’t go south or we’ll end up in the sea!”
Ray says 2023 was a good year for silage and corn.
“The first crops of silage in May and June were very good. We then got two months of rain that made it grow again. We were happy with the harvest too. The yields were good, despite the fact that the harvest ran a bit late with all the rain that fell in August,” he explains.
Passionate about agri contracting and tillage farming, Ray would like to take this opportunity to thank his customers and suppliers for their continued support as well as his crew for their hard work, dedication and expertise.
Nohoval Contracting Services Ltd
Ballindeasig,
Nohoval,
Kinsale,
Co. Cork.
P17 WR60.
Telephone: 086 607 3825
Email: [email protected]
First published in Irish Tractor & Agri magazine Vol 11 No 6, December 2023/January 2024
