Based in County Durham, in the north of England, Carrick Contractors Ltd is run by John Carrick and specialises in forestry operations such as brash raking, forest road and bridge construction, weed suppression, stone crushing, wood chipping and mulching, timber extraction and mounding.

In addition, John and his son Robert also run a sheep enterprise, buying young lambs and fattening them. John feels he has been put on this earth to solve problems with practical solutions and describes himself as self-taught in engineering and fabrication.

He has over 40 years’ experience in all things forestry and moorland related and says he has gained most of his knowledge from working in this environment.

John has a brilliant engineering mind and an ability to transfer his thoughts from imagination to innovation.

What was the motivation to build his own mounding machine?

“One of the most important things in life we have is time and my pet hate is wasting time. If there is a faster and better way to do something, then that is what fuels me.”

According to John, using an excavator is not always the fastest way to make mounds for growing trees, although he acknowledges that, in extremely tough conditions, it might be the only way. However, this concept of a continuous forestry mounding machine would work in 80–90% of places, he feels.

With diesel currently at record prices and representing a significant expense for any contracting operation, efficiency is a major driving factor.

“I studied the market, and there are a few other manufacturers out there that make a tractor-mounted continuous forestry mounding machine, but they are just too light for this work.”

They are fine on land such as tillage ground, but that’s not often the reality with land being selected for forestry in places like the north of England, Scotland, or parts of Ireland.

“The places where we establish commercial forestry are often uphill, with uneven terrain, stones, rocks, roots and heavy clay soil.”

Tractors will face slipping, crabbing and often struggle for traction, especially in winter when they try to pull implements through wet peaty-type soil.

John explains how other manufacturers tried to make the machine light to overcome this problem. “The current range of tractor equipment, I felt, was simply not built to suit these conditions and end up with frames cracking and so forth.”

He says that adding thicker steel and gussets can strengthen an implement, but it also adds weight. In the forestry sector, particularly in soft ground conditions, extra weight can be the enemy, leading to traction issues for both the tractor and the implement set up. “I decided to build a machine that had to carry its own weight,” he says.

“This involved a driven axle and PTO driveline. I could then use heavier steel and not worry about the tractor failing to travel or the machine ever breaking.”

What makes this particular machine unique in the market is its driven axle, powered by the ground drive PTO from the tractor, which makes it a combined 6 x 6 drivetrain. This makes it exceptionally safe and offers far greater climbing ability.

“The secret sauce – without giving away too many details – is a brilliant ground-drive system that was first developed in the 1960s.”

There is no Isobus or fancy electronics, just robust and reliable technology that works. “We use a Valtra tractor with it because it still has a ground-drive PTO feature, which some other modern tractor manufacturers no longer offer.”

As forward speed increases, the machine moves at the same rate as the tractor. It greatly helps to go both backwards and forwards and can act as a park brake.

It allows for travel up steep inclines, and there is very little risk of the tractor getting stuck when the implement is raised, as the back end of the tractor is not sinking. Ground conditions make a huge difference to output, and the implement is not a hinderance, but an assist to the tractor.

“I’ve had people from around here and right across the north of England, ringing me up back in March trying to book me with this machine for winter work, telling me they must have this machine because they like the job it does.

The bigger mounds are better as they feel for the tree to establish, and it’s still left in rows, so you don’t have trees all over the place.

This means they can travel afterwards with a quad, and the spacing is even and the mounding consistent.

“It’s also left easier for the guys planting, as the rows are easy to follow rather than having an inconsistent pattern with mounds randomly everywhere. We have completed hundreds and hundreds of acres with this machine without a single problem on the final design,” John says.

Output-wise, John doesn’t like to comment, as there are so many variables, he says, including soil, rainfall, topography, time of year, tractor horsepower, tyres and operator experience.

“From my experience, I’ll happily say that the output can be three to five times that of an excavator. But what age and size is the excavator, and how experienced is the operator?”

If the conditions are favourable and the set up is right, John is adamant it can “really get on” in terms of output.

The machine is designed to create approximately 2,500 mounds per hectare. The spacing between lines cannot vary because the revolving digging teeth have a fixed diameter. Therefore, the spacing between mounds along each line is also fixed.

It generally creates mounds between 12 and 18 inches high, depending on the soil type.

Previously, a mound of this size was thought to be beyond the capability of a continuous mounder because, within each two-metre cycle, the machine must dig, pull, invert and return to the ground. “You can’t deviate the spacing down the lines as the mounds turn up at fixed intervals after the tractor.

"But you can deviate the spacing between passes, so you can do 1,600-2,000 per hectare still if there were hardwoods etc to be incorporated.”

Wet-ground capability depends on matching the machine to a tractor with suitable horsepower and good tyres. In theory, this machine could be used for mounding on heavy land throughout the year, provided a tracked tractor had a ground-drive PTO.

Earlier excavator-based mounding, which John refers to as ‘dolloping’, created shallow drains with mounds on both sides.

This method is no longer favoured because of concerns about runoff.

John explains that current Forestry Commission and Natural England requirements aim to prevent continuous drainage, runoff, sediment and silt movement, nitrate pollution and water discolouration on new grant-funded sites.

Similar requirements apply in Ireland. Mound quality also depends on soil depth and composition, with a clay covering on top of the mound said to help reduce weed encroachment. John rejected the suggestion that trees planted on previous systems from the 1980s, such as the double-throw ploughed ground are inherently more vulnerable to windthrow.

He considered tree species, operator skill, drainage design, slope angle and sediment control to be more important factors.

John says that he has two approved patents, with a third in development. This mounding machine was developed through practical failures and redesign.

John is open to licensing or manufacturing arrangements, including percentage-based deals.

He acknowledged that his current workshop is not equipped for high-volume production. He also deliberately avoided making precise output claims, explaining that figures quoted in brochures can be misleading when real-world ground conditions vary significantly.

John says that if someone is interested in a machine, he could have one ready for them by Christmas.

He has the key components to build another three machines at his premises.

He is very open to working with an engineering firm to mass-produce some of his designs.

“There are always deals to be done, for sure, if the right people come forward. I simply never pushed it to be honest, we had visitors from North America, we get emails from time to time enquiring. But we are so busy with the day-to-day stuff, it’s hard to get the time.

“When we can’t find the tool for the job, we build it ourselves.” One such invention was a machine designed for open peatland drains. Traditionally, an excavator bucket was used to create a rectangular drain profile left behind by the bucket.

"Over time, however, John explains that water and erosion at the bottom of the drain could create an undercut, turning the drain profile into a lightbulb-like shape: narrow on top and wide on the bottom. “The vegetation grows together and it’s hollowed-out underneath. So, it might be a narrow split at the top, six inches wide, but it might be 18 inches wide at the bottom.”

John described how he became involved in peatland rewetting in the 1990s, initially on a small scale, before being approached by an ecologist in late 2006 and early 2007. She asked him to develop a solution to address these eroded drains, as their shape could trap small animals and birds.

“If anything drops in, like ground nesting birds, grouse or whatever, on the moors, and if they have a brew of chicks, the mother grouse is sort of walking around, and the chicks following, and if she jumped in the side of a grip, then the little chicks would follow and they’ll drop in. They couldn’t get out.”

John developed a large roller, approximately two metres tall, with conical sides to reshape the undercut drains. The aim was to create sloping sides, allowing birds, small animals and livestock like lamps to escape rather than becoming trapped beneath an overhang as the drain maintains a positive angle. The early versions encountered problems with weight and transport.

“We filled it with water and that was fine, it worked, but you couldn’t carry it around because it was too heavy. The successful design in the end modified tractor hydraulics to press the roller down into the drain, allowing it to reshape the profile.

John said that thousands upon thousands of metres of drains had been treated using the system, describing the invention as “do it once and forget it” and the drains held there shape and it didn’t act as a trap anymore. “You can work with nature if you put your mind too it.”

John has invented many other items over the years. He recently converted an old Shelbourne Reynolds dung spreader into a sheep feeder and it can fill from an auger into sheep troughs in the fields, saving time.

He came runner-up in a competition for farm inventions in the UK this year with a machine that he said he hadn’t even got around to finishing. To preserve history – something John is passionate about – he acknowledges both Henry Ford’s and Harry Ferguson’s contributions to agriculture. He speaks about the meeting between Ford and Ferguson in Dearborn in 1938 and how he has some memorabilia of Ferguson’s demonstration to Ford of the three-point hitch and hydraulic draft control system.

He built a tractor which he calls a Ford Ferguson 22N where he took a Ferguson industrial backend and a Ford 4000 front and merged them with a 12-speed gearbox in a humorous but also serious way in recognition of what might have been if the relationship continued and brings it to some vintage tractor shows like Newark.