Dealers of Sumo cultivation and crop equipment Grimme UK have opened new premises at Ladybank, Fife.
The new premises, just over a mile from the firm’s old base, has been converted from a former equestrian centre, and its workshop area is as large as the entire site of the old depot.
It is complemented by a comprehensive and fully-stocked stores, as well as administrative offices, designed to support not only Grimme’s own line of root crop machinery, but also the range of Sumo equipment marketed by Grimme UK’s retail branches.
"We have sold around 50 Trio one-pass cultivators since we became a Sumo dealer, and while the use of minimum tillage techniques isn’t perhaps as widespread in this part of the country as it is further south, the 3m Trio has proved particularly popular," says branch manager, Kenny Findlay. "We have retailed a number of units with seeders, with many customers using them for working down and sowing spring oilseed rape after potatoes."
While Sumo cultivation equipment needs little in the way of servicing, the new premises allow much more space for pre-delivery inspection work, ensuring that machines are delivered to customers properly set-up and sorted, says Mr Findlay.
"We’re in the process of expanding our workforce of nine to include not only further service engineers, but also more stores staff. That’s as much for the Sumo side as for the potato machinery – we find that many customers prefer genuine Sumo spares as not only are they longer-lasting, but actually also cost less."
Away from the ’traditional’ Trio task of creating a seedbed ahead of a min-till drill, Mr Findlay says that customers in the area are also using the implement to improve soil structure ahead of potato planting.
"We have customers who, after ploughing in January/February, are then following with the Trio before ridging and destoning to improve the land’s ability to allow water to pass through the soil profile. In this respect, it can help them to meet the Good Agricultural and Environmental Condition rules that must be met to receive the Single Farm Payment. On one farm, use of the Trio turned the worst part of one field into the best in terms of yield."
But it’s not just arable machinery that Grimme UK has retailed from Ladybank, says Mr Findlay.
"To date we have sold several GLS grassland subsoilers, and are seeing further strong interest, particularly with the currently buoyant beef market. We’ve even retailed one GLS to a golf range, where it’s proved ideal for loosening packed, hard ground and alleviating the problem of standing water after heavy rain."
