New to the HE-VA range of machines at LAMMA is the ‘Crimper Roller’, a knife roller designed to roll, cut and bruise cover crops in front of a direct drill. Rolling down the canopy, the Crimper Roller makes it easier to drill through a heavy cover crop and bruises the foliage to speed up degradation allowing successful establishment of the following crop.

‘The advent of large-scale cover cropping has led to increased interest in how to destroy and drill through the canopy,’ commented James Woolway, OPICO Managing Director. ‘This new Crimper Roller has angled edges set at 140mm spacing to cut or bruise the cover crop every 140mm along its length. This allows effective drilling, whilst also ensuring quicker decomposition of the cover crop encouraging the following crop to emerge through residues more quickly. In some cover crop mixes the Crimper Roller can cause sufficient damage to kill off the crop without the need to use glyphosate, saving both time and input costs.’

Each section of the roller has stepped edges which spread the weight of the whole section, preventing any soil disturbance and avoiding weed seeds being brought to the surface, fitting into a zero-till cultivation system.

The Crimper Roller uses a proven HE-VA front press frame, which becomes an extension of the front of the tractor when attached, meaning it is ‘trailed’ rather than pushed so that it follows the nose of the tractor to steer smoothly, even at speed. On 4m and 6m models this is combined with a steering damper to stabilise the machine which compensates for slopes and prevents any over-reaction of guidance systems to the movement of the front press.

The crimping sections are made from 600mm metal tubes which can be ballasted with water to provide extra weight so the roller is not held up if the cover crop is particularly tall, thick or woody.

The Crimper Roller is available in a 3m rigid model, or 3m, 4m or 6m folding models, starting at £5097 + VAT.

The 6m Crimper Roller will be on display on the OPICO HE-VA stand (no. B10) at LAMMA. It retails at £10,963 +VAT.