James Bell has built a reputation around the Tetbury area for doing things a little differently and taking an innovative approach to farming.

As well as running his own farm at Shipton Moyne where his family has farmed for around 40 years, he has grown the business through a series of amalgamations, providing what he likes to call ‘Farming Solutions’ to other farms in the locality. It’s a form of contracting, but not in the usual way.

Instead, James offers his services where other farmers may be struggling to cope with the workload in a particular season, or perhaps where seasoned farmers want to stand back a little but not retire completely. It’s a system that has worked efficiently, enabling farmers in the area to make the most of their land without the investment needed for machinery that may not be utilised full time.

To support his activities James has built up an impressive line-up of machinery and has been a customer of T H WHITE for many years. Much of the equipment in his shed today has been supplied by T H WHITE through Knockdown-based sales rep Andy Taylor, including two Väderstad Tempo maize drills, five New Holland crop cutter balers, as well as New Holland combine and forage harvesters.

Sometimes an item from T H WHITE’s extensive selection of quality used machinery fits the bill perfectly, and this was the case recently with a Ziegler hydraulic folding maize header. In typical pioneering spirit James is planning to use the header on his CR9080 tracked combine instead of his forage harvester, a trend that is becoming increasingly popular.

“With a forager the whole crop is harvested,” says James, “but with a combine you can just take the grain from the cob and leave the rest in the field. That gives you a quality feed to add to forage.

“Using an adaptor plate the same header can be fitted to the forage harvester and the cob can be chopped for maize silage. Either way you can get the yield you want from the maize crop, which also makes a good break crop instead of growing rape”

If you have a maize crop ready for harvest this autumn anywhere within 30 miles range of Tetbury you might like to ask James to bring it in for you. Call him on 01666 502486.

And, if you are looking for top value, quality used and stock equipment, why not take a look at what T H WHITE has on offer? There’s a selection on the back page of White’s World and you can view the whole stock at www.thwhiteused.co.uk.