Landwrx has been quietly building a reputation for well-built, versatile drills. Now Tom Land has his eye on the future.
Tom Land established Landwrx near Ross-on-Wye six years ago, initially offering a range of low-disturbance subsoilers to suit farms using minimum tillage or direct drilling regimes.
“These did well, but it quickly became a crowded market, and I was keen to develop something new. Something that would offer us a niche,” he explains.
Using his workshop, which he has equipped with a robotic welder, a lathe and a mill to enable nearly every part of the construction to be done on-site, Tom started development of a lightweight drill. The idea was to offer something that could handle overseeding and cover crop establishment, but it quickly became clear that the unit had a greater level of versatility.
“It’s called the Varia air seeder because the coulters are simply clamped to the toolbar,” Tom says. “This means that they can be adjusted to sow a secondary crop down rows of maize.”
It’s fitted with a 1,000-litre seed tank, with options of 550 litres or 750 litres, or can be provided as a toolbar to be combined with a front tank. Regardless of the size, a large hydraulic fan is mounted to push seed into the Accord RDS electronic metering system. This can also be updated to an Isobus-compatible system.
Options to suit
It’s currently available in four working widths, 3m, 4m, 6m and 7.5m, with Tom believing that the wider models will continue to be the most popular, with the 6m requiring between 100 and 150hp up front, enabling those with smaller tractors to maximise their productivity.
“Because it has such a low power requirement, it makes sense for growers to maximise their working width and get crops in the ground when timings allow,” he adds.
The low base price will no doubt help, with Tom stating that a 6m model with 24 coulters can be on farm for as little as £29,000.
It’s possible to adapt the machine as well. Tom offers three different coulters for the Varia. A single tine coulter, a band sowing coulter supplied by Bourgault Tillage Tools, and a double-disc coulter that he designed himself. Coulters are fitted to a parallelogram arm with a clip and pin, which he says counters any lateral forces and stops any self-adjustment.
The arms can be mounted in a row, with a single stagger of 180mm, or, in high trash conditions, a double or triple stagger can be specified. To cope with sowing directly into stubbles or cover crops, Tom has also added the option of a front-mounted row of discs. This can be easily unbolted from the machine when not in use, but he says it has ‘transformed the drill when working in fields with a lot of trash’.
As standard, each coulter has a sprung downforce of between 30 and 70kg, with the option to add heavy-duty springs that increase this to 110-120kg. Depth adjustment is handled via a turnbuckle, with a full turn increasing the depth by 1.8mm.
A view to the future
Tom says that he wants the drill to be a viable option at several points during the year, from sowing cover crops, undersowing in maize and overseeding on grassland. He also notes that some customers have trialled it with establishing cereal crops, with good success.
His next aim is to integrate a front frame with hydraulic sideshift, allowing customers to turn around after sowing and run weeding hoes down the rows. “The drills are designed for longevity, and that means maximising their use. A lot of people are looking for mechanical weeding options as chemistry options are taken off the market, and for an additional cost, the Varia could be transformed into two machines in one.”
Local grower John Joseph, who was named the 2025 Soil Grower of the Year in an event co-run by the Farm Carbon Toolkit and Innovation for Agriculture, has been very impressed with the Varia. “It helps us achieve optimum seed to soil contact, essential to help get crops off to a quick start. Our previous disk drill was leaving an open slot, and with our high magnesium soils, it would glaze over and open up with the dry weather
“The unit is designed around convenience. I can fill and calibrate without going up a load of steps, and the depth wheel is also the consolidator. With the coulters following the soil contours, it places seed at a consistent depth.”
