New drainage machine digs and fills – all in the one operation

IT’S the cheaper way of doing drainage without the need for pipes . . . and the one pass land drain machine is the invention of the Coen brothers from Mullagh – James and Frank.

Their Scorpion 500 is capable of holding six tonnes of small stones that are laid into the soil in little drills – cut out by a macerator on the machine – that are six inches wide and 15 inches deep, with no pipes involved.

So far, there is only one Scorpion 500 manufactured but two more are in the course of production although the Coens don’t plan to sell off their handywork – over the coming months they expect to have all three working flat out for hire.

According to James Coen, their machine – valued in the region of €100,000 – is geared mainly for the drainage of surface water in fields although he also carried out work for a large potato farmer ‘up the country’ with compacted soil.

In the case of tillage farmers, a depth of 10 inches of stone is used, enabling the land to be tilled on top without rooting up the drain.

The ‘one man, one tractor, one machine’ set-up means that the cost of hiring the Scorpion works out at a relatively modest 70c a metre for drainage work plus the cost of the stone at about 50c a metre.

“One of the big savings is that the farmer doesn’t have to go to the expense of buying pipes while far less stone will be used with our machine given the narrower tracks, as compared to the conventional pipe drains,” said James Coen.

In the past, land drainage pipes had also tended to ‘seize up’ with the inlet slits for the water getting blocked up, in the process restricting water flow.

The Coens use a 170hp four wheel drive New Holland tractor to pull and power the Scorpion – called after the spider with the powerful sting – and they intend to cover ‘the length and breadth’ of Ireland with their drainage machines.

He said that he first saw a similar type machine in use in Germany some years back but found nothing available in Ireland – so the Coens decided to manufacture their own one.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.