Published by Farmers Guide, January 2008.

Kevin Johnson spreading LimeX 70 at 2t/acre near Ramsey St Mary
with his Fendt 716 and KRM Bedall spreader.

Contractor's business is
spreading across the Fens

WITTERING-based contractor Kevin Johnson started working in agriculture straight from school in 1971. He learnt his trade during two years on a mixed unit at Glinton, Cambridgeshire, which had an arable, pig and dairy enterprise, before moving for an initial six-week contract on a farm near Wittering.

His work proved to be of such a high standard that he went on to spend the next eight years there, combining duties with the farm's pig and suckler herds, and 600 acres of arable and grassland, with its contract drilling business that covered about 2,000 acres/year.

In 1981 Kevin Johnson Contracting was established with a single tractor and a 3m Hestair drill (which is still in his yard today, although it has been superseded by newer models). A little more than a decade later, the business had added lime and fertiliser spreading and the cutting of grassland and verges to its services.

The shape of the business is more or less the same today, using top-quality equipment to provide drilling and spreading services within a 30-mile radius of base, although most of the work is to the east of the A1.

Mr Johnson's 160hp Fendt 716 and 15t KRM Bredal spreader (new for 2007) are kept busy throughout the sugar beet campaign, when backloads of LimeX from the beet factories provide a good bit of work, both for farmers directly and on contract to British Sugar.

"I work mainly on the Fens, in North Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire, as far as Boston and Spalding," Mr Johnson told Farmers Guide. "The spreader operates at 12m wide and I can spread as much as 400t/day, although the average is closer to 300t/day because of the travelling time from where the LimeX is tipped to the field." The Bredal also gets brought out for fertiliser spreading in the spring, while winter provides another role for the spreader, with Mr Johnson responsible for salting a number of car parks in icy weather.

The summer months see Mr Johnson take on a self-employed driver to help with verge cutting and drilling. A new 6m Kuhn drill has already been ordered for the 2008 season, to replace the current 6m Accord pneumatic seeder.

Central to the verge cutting operation is a 214hp Mercedes-Benz Unimog 1600. Even though it has worked for 10,000 hours, it's still going strong and filling a vital role in the business.

Keeping up with trends, Kevin Johnson Contracting offers precision farming services with GPS-linked fertiliser spreading and drilling for farmers that want to make the most of yield mapping data.

"I bought the GPS system for one farm back in 2005, but there are now more enquiries coming through from growers that want to use it," Mr Johnson told Farmers Guide. "I picked up quite a lot of work in 2007 fertiliser spreading on a farm where the GPS-enabled tractor had broken down.

"More combines are now coming out of the factory with yield mapping ability and the farms are starting to catch up by opting to use the information collected for variable-rate fertiliser spreading and seeding."

Kevin Johnson Contracting can be contacted on 01780 782924 or 07860 608825.