The farming industry in Ireland has been witness to many changes over the years, particularly machinery wise as bigger and better equipment is always coming on the market.
Agricultural contractors are always aware that in order to keep up with their ever increasing workloads, they need the best of the best when it comes to machinery.
Purchasing the various machinery used for contracting doesn’t come cheap, but farmers are loyal to contractors when the job is done on time and properly.
One of the leading agricultural contractors in Wexford is Aidan Wickham who has been working for himself for over 32 years now, having left school at 17.
Aidan has worked hard all his life to develop the business into what it is today and Wickham Agri Contracts supply a wide range of services to a large customer base.
These services include dung and slurry spreading; ploughing, tilling, sowing and silage in the agricultural sector, while Aidan also has a plant hire business that sees them do a lot of land reclamation work and groundworks.
The company portfolio doesn’t end there as two Scania trucks are busy on the road, hauling mainly grain for the Cooney Furlong company.
All these combined ensure that Aidan and his full time staff of three are kept busy all year round, while seasonal workers give a hand out during the summer months. Oh and Aidan also finds the time to farm his own land over 100 acres of tillage located at his homestead on the main New Ross to Clonroche road in Co Wexford.
This is a far cry from when the young Aidan first started out on his own as he purchased a second-hand single-row Armer Salmon beet harvester and with his father John’s Ford 4600 tractor, he began to pull beet, a popular crop of the time, for his neighbours. Over the years more and more services were added until what he provides today.
“The first few months of the year are taken up with spreading slurry and dung. We spread the slurry by tanker and we then take into the ploughing, tilling and sowing,” said Aidan.
“We would sow in the region of 4,300 acres of corn and we would plough up to 2,000 acres every year. I’d use all Vaderstad machinery for this work.
Of course, the summer months are upon us and that means just one thing for agri contractors and that’s silage. Harvesting sees Aidan and his team cut up to 3,200 acres, while they wrap 11,000 bales on average every year.
“The summer months are certainly our busiest, but we manage to get through it all. Of course, the weather is our biggest obstacle, but if there is a window of opportunity there, you just have to work around the clock to get the work done.”
Once the silage is finished, attention turns to harvesting maize and to carry out all this work, an extensive, modern fleet of machinery is needed.
The list of machinery includes Combines: Claas Lexion 580 with 30ft header, Claas Lexion 650 with 25ft header. Forager: Claas Jaguar 970. Tractors: 3 X Fendts, 936 X 2, 724, 3 X John Deere, 6210R, 7530 X 2, Claas Arion 640, Landini Legend 165. Sprayer: Bateman RB26 30 M Self Propelled Sprayer. Cultivation: 2 X 5 furrow Kverneland reversible ploughs, 6 M Vaderstad Rexius Twin, 6M Vaderstad TopDown, 6M Kuhn power harrow. Drills: 2 X Vaderstad corn drills 6M Rapid and 4M Spirit. Slurry Kit: Major 2600 Tanker, Major 7500 agitator. Dung Kit: Joskin 18t rear-discharge spreader. Trailers: 5 X Smyth silage trailers, 2 X 24ft tri-axles, 1 X 22ft and 2 X 20ft. Smyth Dump Trailer. Mowing: Krone B1000 triple mowers, Kverneland front-mounted and 10ft trailed combination. Balers: 2 X McHale Fusions, 1 X Fusion 3 Plus and 1 X Fusion 2, Massey Ferguson 187 big square baler. Loaders: 2 X Volvo L90, 1 X JCB 414S. Grass line: Claas 3100 twin-rotor rake, Lely Lotus 6-rotor tedder. McHale 991 wrapper.
Throw in the two Scania trucks and the Volvo EC220 Tracked Digger and one can envisage that one of the highest outlays for Aidan is diesel.
“My diesel bill would run into hundreds of thousands every year, but it is not as dear as it has been in recent years. We use the same supplier all the time and they come to us as quickly as possible, which during the peak months is important for us.
“The machinery is kept in very good condition, we would do some maintenance ourselves, but a lot of it goes back to the dealer, while we would upgrade every few years in order to keep the fleet fresh. Downtime is something that we strive to avoid.”
Many of Aidan’s customers have been with him for decades, and they are not only based in the Wexford region.
“We would cover well over a 30-mile radius from the home place, which would cover Wexford, south Kilkenny, Waterford, Wicklow and Carlow.”
The abolition of the milk quota has seen a rise in the amount of silage being cut, according to Aidan.
“The future of farming looks good to be honest. Farmers are able to grow now without any restrictions and that can only benefit everyone involved.”
Aidan’s two sons Aidan Jnr and Jack have shown a keen interest in the business also, while his wife Margaret looks after the paperwork.
Wickham Agri Contracts
Clonroche,
Co Wexford
Tel: 087-2597372
Email: [email protected]
Taken from Irish Tractor & Agri magazine Vol 5 No 5, July/August 2017
