Hertfordshire farmers A T Bone & Sons are no strangers to adapting equipment to suit their needs. The latest is a pair of ex-military MAN lorries which, now working as a bowser and crane lorry, and have proven to be indispensable to this highly professional diversified agri-business.
The A T Bone & Sons story begun in the late 1950s with Alan Bone’s mixed farm near Ware in Hertfordshire, and two decades later the dairy cows were sold to fund a move to a larger arable farm closer to London. In the late 1980s Alan’s sons Russell and Daniel joined the business, and early expansion involved the acquisition of a contract spraying business. Although contract crop spraying finished in the early 2000s, a pair of Toyota Hilux pickups had also carried out amenity applications, initiating a diversification into sports turf and amenity work which has grown to become a sizeable and important division of the business today.
Speaking of other divisions, a large civil engineering and landscaping operation serves customers throughout the home counties, and an extremely well-equipped workshop, with five full-time employees, undertakes fabrication work as well as servicing and maintenance. A substantial biomass boiler produces heat for the farm office, drying grain and for drying woodchip which is marketed as biomass, and most of the farm’s straw is baled and traded.
Meanwhile, the farmingyears. Rapid expansion over the past six years, including an agreement with a nearby estate and another farming business, has pushed this up to a massive 3,750ha (9,266 acres) spread throughout Hertfordshire. Cropping across this vast area consists of cereals, oilseed rape and beans, along with sugar beet, AD maize, and some grass and stewardship. Soil types are extremely mixed, and cultivations are flexible.
