Company History

The Claydon family have farmed the heavy clay lands of Suffolk, in the east of England, since the early 1900s.  Jeff and Frank Claydon have been farming since 1970 and are the third generation to do so under the E.T. Claydon & Sons partnership.

The first Claydon product was the Claydon Yield-o-Meter invented by Jeff in 1980.  The company Claydon Yield-o-Meter Limited was subsequently formed in 1981.  Jeff’s vision was to create a grain monitoring device that could be fitted to almost any combine and would give accurate readings of how tonnes were being harvested by the combine, as opposed to using the traditional method of a weighbridge.

This was to become the first ever grain monitoring device to be fitted to a combine.

The yield monitor enabled the farmer to analyse data they previously had to guess.  It helped them determine high yielding crops and varieties much more easily.  It gave the farmer an accurate reading of how much grain he had harvested that minute, hour, day, month and year. Such was its success, the Yield-o-Meter won a Royal Agricultural Society of England Silver Medal in 1995.   The Yield-o-Meter was fitted to many combines (mainly CLAAS) in the UK and Europe.

In 1995 Claydon Yield-o-Meter Ltd brought the Furrow Cracker to the UK market. This is a device that has been fitted to hundreds of ploughs throughout the UK.  It slices through the freshly turned clods at up to 6 inches deep in 2 inch rows, allowing the weather into the soil to decompose the clod naturally.

In 2003,  Jeff launched to market the first Claydon direct drill – the V Drill.  The drill was invented out of necessity.  Wheat prices had dropped to a low and the costs of inputs and ploughing on the family farm were ever-increasing; farming was becoming unviable.  The V-drill dramatically reduced the cost and time taken to establish crops on the farm.

The V Drill was followed by the SR, Hybrid and Evolution drills.  Stubble management machinery and rolls have been developed and added to the drill range over the years to offer a complete crop establishment solution.

Claydon machinery is developed on a working farm by farmers for farmers. It is tried and tested in real farming conditions in a real farm environment before bringing to market.

The Claydon Farm has not been ploughed since 2002 and the family establishes around 400 hectares in an autumn drilling season with a single 6m Claydon Drill and a single tractor.   Further hectares are drilled on contract.

Since 2003, Claydon have become the European market leader in direct drilling.  The company’s drills, straw harrow and inter-row hoes are now operating in over 30 countries across the world, supported by a network of distributors and dealers, and manufactured from the Claydon base in Suffolk.