Farming for generations, the Shortalls in Stradbally, Co Laois have been keeping their family’s proud tradition going strong. Irish Tractor & Agri spoke to Martin Shortall to find out about his John Deere fleet and what he has been up to as of late.
Family and farming have gone hand-in-hand in this country for generations and as far as Martin Shortall is concerned, he wouldn’t rather be doing anything else.
Since finishing agricultural college at Kildalton in 2004, Martin has been providing an excellent agricultural contracting service which specialises in tillage and grassland work.
Indeed Shortall Agri Services has built up a splendid reputation since its inception and has been experiencing busy times recently off the back of that hard-earned reputation.
Working alongside his father, Andrew, Martin wanted to expand the already existing contracting buisness and hasn’t looked back since, doing work for customers all throughout Co Laois and outside its borders.
“We’re based in Aughamaddock, Stradbally in Co Laois,” explained Martin, who is running the services side of the business.
“My family has been farming for generations. My father and grandfather were doing it before I was born and I suppose I would’ve started full time back in 2004.
“Myself and my father had started contracting together and mostly what we do here is seasonal work. March through October would be our busiest time of year and when we’re at our busiest we’d have up to five working for us here.”
As farmers and agricultural contractors, Shortall Agri Services provide a service specializing in tillage and grassland work. The tillage work that they carry out consists of complete “stubble to stubble” contracting or part work carried out.
The grassland part mainly consists of baled silage and hay, while there’s the option of mowing, tedding, raking and slurry spreading, while grass re-seeding, ploughing or disced before sown is also carried out.
Martin’s business also supplies silage, hay and straw in all shapes and sizes and all produce and work is “quality as standard”.
“We’re feeding cattle here daily in a bed and breakfast arrangement, finishing 1200 beef cattle each year. We also farm 400 acres of cereals,” said the Laois native.
“Mainly what we do is tillage work our main service in that is sowing around 1,200 to 1,500 acres. We buy and sell a lot of straw throughout the year. Last year I bought a New krone Big Pack square baler to run alongside the already existing two Welger round balers, but at this time of year would be working mainly with the cattle.
“As I said, our busiest time is in the spring into summer between sowing and harvesting and we’re kept busy throughout the winter as well with feeding.”
The range of services that Martin and his staff often sees them staying busy all year round.
Combine that with the fact that the majority of their customers are nearby and you start to understand why Shortall Agri Services has grown to become a successful business over the past decade and a half.
Fair pricing has a lot to do with it along with some word of mouth, according to the man himself.
“Most of our customers would be local. A lot of them would be within a five-mile radius and the furthest wouldn’t be any more than 30 miles,” explained Martin.
“Like everything else, I think, customers go by price and quality and I think we offer a fair service that way. Price-wise, we try and keep the machinery updated – that’s what customers want and the quality of service is what they pay for.
“The customer wants to get the job done right and as quick as possible – that’s what I’ve learned in all my years of doing this and that’s what we try and provide for them.”
Martin’s machinery is largely made up of John Deere tractors – a brand which he has found very reliable down through the years.
Since switching over from New Holland almost 10 years ago, Martin has been happy to keep buying John Deere above all other brands and has kept his fleet updated with some state-of-the-art machinery.
“We have four tractors – all of them John Deere. We run a 6430, 6920s, 6150r with a h360 loader,6190r and a JCB 536-60 load all. This January we are awaiting delivery of a new John Deere 6215r and a new 6mtr Horsch Pronto drill.
“The new john Deere is coming with full Auto-Trac. As we are now looking to get into providing gps based services such as gps drilling, fertiliser section control, etc. We also hope Auto-Trac will reduce fuel, input costs and cut down of fatigue.”
On the John Deere brand, Martin feels that they can’t be beaten when it comes to value for money and the reliability of their products.
“The services we get out of John Deere and TFM are excellent and price-wise I think they’re up there with the best you can get when you consider the quality of them,” he stated.
“Since 2007, we’ve only been running John Deeres tractors here. Before that I was running New Hollands, we still run a New Holland CX combine but I like the John Deere tractors more because they’re a reliable brand.”
Along running his own business, Martin has been chairman of the IFA’s Stradbally branch for four years up until 2013. Before that, he had been secretary for two years and served in his role for the duration of his term.
“It’s a small branch in Stradbally and basically how it came about was I got proposed at a meeting and went forward for it. I’d been there for a number of years,” he laughed.
Martin has plenty on his plate for 2016 and the plan is to keep it all ticking over for the next couple months into what is set to be another busy summer period.
Back in December, he was looking at the possibility of going out and working on Christmas Day, which gives as clear an indication as any as to why:
“We’re busy at the moment (in December),” he stated. “We will even be out Christmas Day working with cattle – that’s a real possibility. It’s just the way it is each year and it has to be done.”
Shortall Agri Service
Stradbally
Co. Laois
Taken from Irish Tractor & Agri magazine Vol 4 No 2, February 2016
