Part of the agricultural contracting services offered by GB & RR Phillips & Son of Hayscastle, near Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire includes high volume slurry and waste digestate application. The family-run business started contracting in 2010 and offers a wide range of farm services within 20 miles or so of home.
“Waste slurry application has grown rapidly for us,” commented Joshua Phillips, “we used to run a single axle, 3100-gallon Major tanker for several years and upgraded to a twin-axle model Major tanker, with 3500-gallon capacity, back in 2017. We purchased it from Tallis Amos, our local Major dealer in Narberth. It’s been a really good, reliable and easy to maintain machine and typically we are spreading slurry on over three-thousand acres a year, without any issues whatsoever.”
The Major 3500 Tandem Tanker, like all Major tankers, is constructed using a special sub-chassis for the main tank barrel, which enhances the overall reliability and durability of the unit, extending its working life potential and cost-effectiveness. A galvanised finish protects the machine from the corrosive effects of slurry and it has a hinged back door for ease of access and maintenance cleaning. A very heavy-duty twin, steering rear-axle, manufactured to commercial lorry standards means a level of reliability from the running gear that is rarely found on ordinary tankers. Flotation tyres at 710/55R25 means ground compaction is minimised and transport capabilities are very smooth.
“What I really like about the Major tanker,” added Joshua, “is that it comes fully specified with hydraulic and air brakes, it’s fully road legal with regards to lighting and even when fully-loaded and travelling at 50Kph, it’s stable and travels very smoothly. You almost wouldn’t know you’d got it behind you! The tandem axle with rear-axle steering means it is very manoeuvrable through tight gateways and in restricted yards and the extra capacity over the previous Major tanker, means we can get a lot more done, more quickly and with minimum ground compaction. We use a trailing shoe applicator and everything we do is recorded through our Greenstar GPS system that we have fitted to our John Deere 6155R and Claas 660 tractors, which use RTK GPS. This means we can be totally accurate with our applications and can share this information with our customers for their own management records.
“The after-sales service we get from TAG has been first class. Their parts back-up has been excellent for the Major Tanker and they also support us for the integrated solutions systems we use. All-in-all, we’ve got a great product and back-up here, which means we can always offer our customers total reliability in everything we do.”
