Machinery choices are a divisive topic and often at the helm of discussions when it comes to promoting better soil health. CPM speaks to the winners of this year’s Soil Farmer of the Year competition to find out how smart drill choices can help soils flourish.
“Without good soil, we’re nowhere, so it has to be the priority – in every decision, every pass, every pound spent.” ANDREW MAHON
By Charlotte Cunningham
As regenerative principles continue to gain ground across the UK, more growers are recognising that the drill is far more than just a tool for seed placement – it’s a critical component in building soil health, crop resilience, and long-term farm profitability. Whether it’s reducing disturbance, preserving biology, or improving establishment in challenging conditions, the choice of drill can either support or sabotage the wider system.
One farmer who’s proving that when it comes to sustainable arable farming, what happens at drilling matters more than ever, is John Joseph.
On the slopes near Ross-on-Wye in Herefordshire, John and his wife Julie have spent the past decade rethinking everything they thought they knew about farming. Today, their small arable unit is gaining national recognition for its low-input, biologically-driven approach to soil management – recently earning John the top title of Soil Farmer of the Year. The competition is run by Farm Carbon Toolkit, in partnership with Innovation for Agriculture, and sponsored by Cotswolds Grass Seeds and Hutchinsons.
But his journey hasn’t been an overnight success, nor was it the result of following a blueprint. Instead, it’s been a steady process of breaking, rebuilding and reimagining the farm – with an engineer’s eye for how soil, machinery and biology interact.
However, Trecorras Farm hasn’t always been run this way. Like many farms, John began with a conventional two- to three-pass minimum tillage system. But in 2013, a season of extreme wet weather left him unable to establish a crop.
“I was a one-man-band using a system that required more passes and more horsepower than I had,” he explains. “It rained and rained, and by the end of the season, there was nothing in the ground. Meanwhile, neighbours who’d ploughed and drilled were up and running. It was a painful moment.”
That failure forced a rethink, not just about the cultivation system, but about the soil itself. “The structure was shot and the resilience just wasn’t there,” he says. “We were treating soil like a surface to work, not a living system.”
The change began with a full commitment to strip-till, having met Martin Lole and then investing in a Mzuri drill. “We sold everything else – no ploughs, no power harrows, no cultivators; just the Mzuri. It was a bold move, but forced us to learn how to make it work.”
They didn’t stop there. A no-traffic policy was introduced whereby only the tramlines would see tyres, explains John. “That simple decision massively reduced compaction, and we’re absolutely religious about it.”
In parallel came a broader rotation and a deeper dive into soil biology. “We started asking: what makes a soil actually function? It came back to those regen basics – live roots, constant cover and diverse species.
“We stopped trying to impose control and started trying to create conditions for the soil to do the work.”
After several seasons of improving soil condition under strip-till, John moved to a Horsch Avatar direct disc drill – aiming for even less disturbance and more accurate seeding. But he says his high-magnesium soils had other ideas.
“Initially it looked great, but then we noticed the slots opening up after a few days. I’m convinced the high-mag soils were glazing the sides of the disc slot, almost like a seal. Once dried, the slot would gape open.”
This glazing, he believes, limited root development, encouraged slug movement, and left seed vulnerable. “There was no oxygen; no structure around the seed. Crops just didn’t have that early vigour – even if depth and placement were perfect.”
Unhappy with existing options, John collaborated with Tom Land of Landwrx to build his own drill –one designed from the soil up.
The result was a custom-built, pre-production direct drill tailored to John’s soil conditions and cropping system. It featured a five-leg low-disturbance tine configuration on a 3m toolbar and contour-following seeding shoes adapted from Landwrx’s Varia interseeder.
Two seed hoppers and a liquid tank were added for fertiliser, biology or companion crops, while variable row spacing and coulter width for adaptable row configurations was also made possible. “We can tweak row spacings, band widths, and seed placement depending on the crop. It’s incredibly versatile.”
With his new drill, John also began applying a biological starter dressing to the seed, typically comprising molasses, calcium, trace minerals and microbial inoculants.
Critically, for a farm this size, he says there’s no room for waste. “We’re a small business, our KPI is profitability. We can establish a cover crop for under 1 litre of fuel/ha – that’s the level we’re operating at.”
He also points to significantly lower variable costs than regional averages. “Input use is down because the system’s more resilient to drought or deluge. And we’re no longer reliant on expensive passes or crop protection.”
But perhaps most importantly, the farm is no longer chasing yield at all costs. “You can kill your predators with a cheap insecticide, but you’ll pay for that down the line – in slugs, aphids, soil health. We’re playing the long game.”
Being crowned Soil Farmer of the Year 2025 is a huge accolade – one that John says he’s still digesting. “We’re thrilled – genuinely humbled. Some incredibly well-respected names have won before so to be in that company is a big honour.”
But John is clear: this isn’t about preaching or perfection. “I always tell people – I’m not saying this is what you should do. I’m saying it works for us and there are alternatives out there.”
In Bedfordshire, Andrew Mahon – a runner up in this year’s Soil Farmer of the Year competition – has a similar story to tell when it comes to that symbiotic relationship between the drill and soil health.
It’s not often you hear a grower describe their worst harvest as the catalyst for one of the most transformative journeys in their farming career, but for Andrew – who’s farm manager at Bromborough Estatein North Bedfordshire – that’s exactly what 2012 was.
“That harvest was just horrendous,” recalls Andrew. “We had relentless rain, terrible quality, poor yields – it was the worst I’ve ever experienced. Something had to change.”
Farming 840ha of heavy clay soils with a typical arable rotation, Andrew joined the business in 2008, stepping into a conventional system: full-time staff, some ploughing and min-till, and largely autumn drilling. But 2012 prompted a period of soul-searching, research, and a complete rethink of the farm’s direction, he says.
That same year, BASE-UK was established and Andrew joined. “There were guys like Jake Freestone and Tom Sewell just coming through their Nuffield scholarships, and I started reading into that kind of thinking – regenerative, low-disturbance systems. What really resonated with me was the idea that less could be more.”
The following years saw a dramatic transition – a staff retirement helped ease the structural change and in came a Mzuri strip-till drill, the first step away from full cultivations. But by 2015, the farm had committed fully to direct drilling. “I realised strip-till was still moving too much soil. We had to go further,” explains Andrew. “Since then, we’ve not looked back.”
The shift has gone hand-in-hand with a wider philosophy around soil-first farming: cover crops since 2013, zero insecticides and compost extracts in the past 12 months. These are all decisions made with one central goal in mind: healthier soil.
“It’s at the heart of everything we do now. If conditions aren’t right, we won’t drill. It’s about respecting the soil – especially on heavy clay, where pounding it when it’s wet causes more harm than good.”
The first practical step came with the purchase of a 4m Mzuri drill – a significant shift away from the pass-heavy systems of before. “It was a good stepping stone; we still required horsepower to pull it, but we weren’t churning the soil.”
Two years later, the farm made the leap to full direct drilling. The drill of choice? A 5m Cross Slot, powered by a hired-in 330hp tractor. “The Cross Slot was brilliant – the seed placement, the performance in heavy soils – it was spot on,” says Andrew. “But the tractor required to haul it was a limiting factor, both financially and logistically.
“We wanted something simpler, more flexible, and importantly, something that didn’t tie us to a massive tractor.”
After exploring various options, Andrew ordered a Sly Boss drill, only to discover that George Sly’s own business was undergoing transformation and would soon become what today is known as Horizon Agriculture.
“I ended up with one of the very first Horizon drills – serial number two, in fact. That’s how the relationship with Horizon started, and it’s gone from strength to strength since.”
During the past five years, Andrew has trialled several Horizon models – mounted and trailed, across two and now three generations of design. The current drill is a 6m Gen 3 Horizon DSX, trailed, and was on display at both Groundswell and Cereals this year.
“It’s changed massively since the first version. The design is cleaner, the setup is quicker, and it’s incredibly user-friendly. We’re also trialling Horizon’s peristaltic pump system – version three arrives in September – which will help with precision placement of biologicals and inputs.”
And critically, the drill aligns with Andrew’s principles around minimal disturbance and soil integrity. “It’s a disc drill, so of course hairpinning can be an issue if you’re drilling into straw-heavy stubbles. But we build our rotation to avoid that – cover crops are the main entry point, and we rarely drill second wheats.”
The real magic of the system is the flexibility it provides, believes Andrew. “Our fixed costs have come right down. Because we’re not investing in multiple cultivations or running huge tractors, we can afford to be adaptable. If the conditions aren’t right, we don’t drill. Simple as that.”
That same ethos carries through to crop protection – or more accurately, the lack of it. “We don’t use insecticides anymore and that alone is such a relief. No thresholds to monitor, no knee-jerk sprays. We’ve seen the system balance itself; it’s made farming far more enjoyable.”
Andrew’s approach turns conventional wisdom on its head – the drill isn’t the final act in a crop’s establishment, it’s the first true commitment, he says. “We don’t invest in pre-drilling cultivations. So I always say, until the drill goes in, nothing’s set in stone. That gives us options – and options make for better decisions.
“If autumn doesn’t behave, I’m happy to pivot. We’ve designed the rotation and infrastructure to allow that; I never feel locked in.”
Looking ahead, Andrew remains firmly committed to the soil-first philosophy – one that keeps the farm profitable, the system resilient, and the team grounded. “I always come back to that quote: ‘we owe our existence to six-inches of topsoil and the fact that it rains’. That’s it. Without good soil, we’re nowhere, so it has to be the priority – in every decision, every pass, every pound spent.”
This article was taken from the latest issue of CPM. Read the article in full here.
For more articles like this, subscribe here.
Sign up for Crop Production Magazine’s FREE e-newsletter here.
