There are hedge trimmers and there are hedge cutters. For one enterprising North Yorks farmer, offering a service which can handle large, overgrown hedges is proving to be both popular and profitable. The challenge was clear: To justify the employment of an extra staff member to assist at busy times of the year and find a worthwhile occupation for him when times were not so busy.

This challenge, one suggests, will strike a familiar chord with more than a few farms throughout the UK and beyond. Not many, it seems, appear ever to have found the solution.

That is unless you start to think along the same lines as James Millbank who recognised that there was an opportunity to offer a contract hedgecutting service in his area. Not, it should be said, a standard flail type hedge trimming service, but one which could handle large overgrown hedges, having timber up to 30cm (12in) in diameter.

Based in North Yorks, at Dalton near Scotch Corner, Mr Millbank farms 400ha (1000 acres) of which 120ha are down to combinable crops and the remainder permanent grassland. The farm’s livestock comprises a 700-ewe breeding flock and the fattening of bought in store cattle. “My father was looking for less involvement in the running of the farm and it was clear we were going to need some extra help at harvest and lambing time – but not so much at other times of the year,” he explains. “The solution was to start an enterprise that could provide an income for an extra member of staff at these slack times of the year.”

Mr Millbank was aware that there were already sufficient contractors offering flail hedge trimming to farmers in the area – indeed, he used to employ one himself – but there was no one who was able to handle large, overgrown hedges.“I realised that with Countryside Stewardship or Entry Level Schemes it was not allowed to trim hedges every year which meant that hedges could soon grow beyond the capabilities of flail machines,” he says. “There are also many instances of hedges that, for one reason or another, have become overgrown and out of control.”This, he says led him to investigate the availability of a saw-blade type hedge cutting unit and, after several inquiries he purchased a Shelbourne Reynolds Power Blade, which had a reach of up to 7m, and the French-built Kirogn four-blade cutter head. This combination duly arrived in October last year.

The Shelbourne Reynolds Power Blade uses a telescoping arm to achieve its 7m reach and has electro-hydraulic proportional controls which, insists Mr Millbank, are incredibly user friendly. “It takes about half a day to become totally adept at using them,”  he says. “But once mastered, they are really easy to use – and pretty precise as well.”

A 160hp, John Deere 7700 is used with the unit – not that it needs this much power to operate but it provides the weight to provide the required stability when the arm is fully extended. The Kirogn cutter head is fitted with four cutting blades, each 700mm in diameter.  Each blade over laps the next by a couple of inches to create an uninterrupted cutting width of 2.3m. Power is provided from a hydraulic motor that drives each of the blades using a Poly-Vee belt. Keeping the blades sharp is, he reports proving to be a little demanding – according to the instruction book they need sharpening after every eight hours of operation but Mr Millbank does not agree. “It depends on what you are cutting,” he points out. “Some types of timber take their toll on the blades more quickly than others. In most circumstances I would expect to have to sharpen them every week.  Each blade takes about an hour to sharpen.”He adds that it is the middle two blades which need the most attention due to the fact that the vast majority of hedge material is handled by this part of the blade. Be that as it may, the performance of the blade is, by any standard, impressive if not a truly awesome. Engaging the drive is to hear the blades whine at an ever increasing volume and pitch as they gather speed until, at full pelt, the noise level reaches a pitch that perhaps only a dog can hear.“If possible, it’s best to cut the hedge at the finished level in the first pass,” he explains. “That way it avoids having to make a second cut of short stumps which can become blocked between the overlap of the blades.”Blackthorn and Hawthorn are not high on the popularity list due to their tendency to cling to the blade rather than pass over it as say ash or willow does.

What ever type of growth the hedge comprises, there is always a lot of clearing up to do after the cutting is completed. This is usually achieved by running a loader with forks along the base of the hedge and building a bonfire with the gathered material.   Mr Millbank also advocates creating an ‘A’ shaped hedge rather than one with a square top – cutting with the blade flat is a way of getting bombarded at some velocity with pieces of hedge, he says. To date this Shelbourne Reynolds hedgecutting combination has clocked up about 100 hours with Mr Millbank reporting that he has work on the books which will keep the machine busy for several months to come. “We need to run the machine for 350 hours each year to make it pay for itself and I think we shall achieve this with room to spare,” he says. Apart from having to tighten the belts – an operation which takes longer to remove the guards than do the job, everything appears to have performed well, although the control system did require a few minor repairs at the beginning to ensure it was working correctly, he reports.“We charge a premium for the service when compared with ordinary flail trimming,” he explains. “But I think we are the only ones offering this sort of service in this area – a service which, I point out to customers, is the equivalent of employing 10 men with chainsaws.”