Chris Read, from Cocum Farm, Winchester, specified special side cladding to protect the drier from corrosion and reduce noise. “Our previous machine was 40 years old so obviously there are a lot of improvements on our new one. I’m particularly impressed. The greatly increased volume of air you get through makes this model far more efficient.”

Stephen Bitmead, Manor Farm, Wallingford: “Our AB drier means we have now moved into the right century with grain handling. It has given us a lot more options to get out and cut this year, whereas in the past we would have been waiting for the grain to get down to more acceptable moisture levels. It has lengthened our day and cut down on time wasted so we have been able to get on with other work.”

Graham Fenton from Loantown Farm, Guildtown, near Perth, is now in the second season of using his AB drier to handle barley, oilseed rape and wheat.
“It’s doing everything we expected of it: no-one can fault it,” he said. “We did have one small problem with a burner but, the after-sales service is first-class so it was soon sorted.”

Mike Dewar, farm manager of Stowell Park, Gloucestershire: “The machine certainly does what it is supposed to do. We went to Alvan Blanch because we had had one of their machines before and although we looked at other options we would have needed to install more elevators and conveyors so they would have been much more expensive.”

Ian Baxter, of Chipmunk Equine, Salisbury, now operates an AB drier to handle wood shavings and fuels it with sawdust recovered by the dust extractor via a heat exchanger linked to a woodburner.
“This is the first Alvan Blanch drier we have bought and we are very pleased,” he said.
“It’s a good, solid piece of kit. When you think that we used to burn £700 of diesel a day and now we just burn two tons of sawdust, and the thing is operating for 18 to 20 hours a day, the savings are massive. At that sort of money it’s soon going to pay for itself.”

Markhew Dunlop, manager at Huntly Farm, Dundee, is a first-time Alvan Blanch customer.
“We’re very, very pleased with the drier and I was most impressed by every aspect of our dealing with Alvan Blanch,” he said. “It was delivered here on time, installed on time and ready to go on time when we eventually started combining.
“It’s been working without a problem and in a year like this with moisture content so high it’s been really invaluable. It’s done everything it was meant to do.”

Edward Russell, from Craigo Farms, near Montrose, obtained a Scottish Rural Development Programme grant to buy and install his drier, which is linked via a heat exchanger to a woodchip boiler.
“We have a few hundred acres of timber on the estate so there’s a good supply of fuel,” he said.
“It’s a 220kw boiler but we jack it up and divert most of the hot water through the heat exchanger and we get an additional 10 to 12 degrees C from it so if the ambient temperature is 17C everything’s going into the drier at around 30C, saving £15 of diesel per hour. We juggle everything around to make the best possible use of the heat. Actually we are drying more slowly – but we are saving money.
“We’ve dried 400 aces of cereals this year and that will go up to 1000 fairly soon. We are very happy with the drier. There were one or two minor issues after it was installed - as there always are - but it was all sorted out extremely well. We’re very pleased.”