Lancashire farmer John Gamon admits that the decision to go for a quieter running grain dryer was based on personal reasons. "It was for our own convenience really - we were having a lot of trouble with our previous dryer, every time you walked past the farm it made your ears rattle".

The OPICO 375QF machine is now coming up to its third season at Fowl Farm, Cuerdley, Warrington. And John Gamon and son, Andrew, who trade as J.H. & A. Gamon and are the third and fourth generation of the family to farm the land, are delighted with it.

Of the farm's 370 acres, 250 are down to cereals with a further 100 acres of rape and setaside. The remainder produces potatoes and a bit of grass. Chief livestock enterprise is free-range chickens, which are sold at the farm door.

The grain is dried in a Dutch Barn and then moved to bins for storage on the other side of the yard. The dryer is housed in a shed and, says John, "the quiet fan makes all the difference when you're in there. You can just walk around it and the noise doesn't blast your head off".

They are also very pleased with the dryer's easy controls and reliability. The machine's 9-tonnes capacity works in well with their 9-tonne trailers and the grain cleaner is particularly effective, says John. "Our previous machine didn't have a cleaner and we had loads of whiskers left on the barley. This just chops them off - smashing."

"All in all, we're very pleased with the machine If we swapped it, we'd go for another one."