"Winning this award for the second year in succession is a real feather in his cap; Richard has a good name among his customers for the tractors and service he supplies," said Paul Roberts. "He's always available when tractors need servicing or repairs and he's very knowledgeable when it comes to helping farmers choose the right specification tractor for their needs. It's what being a good farm equipment retailer is all about."
The business, which is run by Richard Tooby and his wife Jenny, is located on Hereford Road, Ledbury and employs two Landini-trained technicians, Alan Price and Ashley Stephens. It's their job to keep customers' tractors and machinery in good working order with on-farm and workshop servicing and repairs. Livestock, arable and mixed farmers are among their customers, as well as many of the specialist fruit growers in the area, who increasingly are using Landini's compact 60-100hp Rex models for work in orchards and poly-tunnels. "They're used for all sorts of jobs from mowing and mulching to spraying and transporting fruit at harvest," notes Richard Tooby. "We've also been very successful at introducing Landini's novel high-clearance tractors. There are more of these unusual machines working in Herefordshire than anywhere else in Britain."
Unusually, the Landini Powerfarm HC has four large diameter narrow wheels front and rear, which gives the tractor a lot more ground clearance than a conventional tractor with large wheels at the back and small ones at the front. "The extra clearance is a real benefit for strawberries and other crops grown in raised beds because it means more work can be done by tractors instead of by hand without any risk of damaging the plants," explains Richard Tooby. "Also, because the beds can be made taller with a greater depth of cultivated soil, the plants tend to over-winter in better condition because of improved drainage conditions."
Yields also tend to be better from crops grown in these taller beds and pickers like them at harvest because they don't have to bend so far to pick the fruit and the berries are better presented. Landini UK sales manager Adrian Winnett applauded Richard Tooby's success in winning the company's southern Dealer of the Year award for a second time, adding that it reflects on an excellent year for Landini in Britain. "Last year was our best ever for both wholesale shipments to dealers and retail deliveries to farmers," he said. "Sales in 2006 were up 8.5% on the previous year, which was itself a record one for us."
A key feature of the Landini line-up, which goes from compact tractors of 45hp to high-performance arable tractors up to 280hp, is that the core Powerfarm, Vision, Mythos and Landpower tractors can be had with a choice of specifications to appeal to farmers wanting a simple, no-frills machine as well as those wanting the performance benefits of features like power shuttle transmissions and electrically-controlled hydraulics.
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