Based at Annaharvey near Tullamore, in Co Offaly, the JF Centre has recently been appointed as a Sulky and SIP dealer for the Offaly region.

The Sulky range of machinery is best known in Ireland for fertiliser spreaders but its range also includes cultivators and seed drills.

SIP manufactures a full range of grassland equipment.

The JF Centre is the largest dealer in Ireland for JF harvesters’ parts and they have 700 customers on their books. They are also a main dealer for Twose hedge-cutters, MX tractor loaders, Sip mowers, Sulky manure shakers and corn drills and Cross Engineering farm machinery in the midlands.

The JF Centre also stocks a wide range of agricultural machinery parts, including Twose, Spearhead, McConnel, JF, Sulky, Sip, Cross, Case and Kverneland.

The dealership is also an agent for Top Tul, Led Global, Quality Tractor Parts, McHugh Components, Genfit, AMA, Sparex, Vires, Irwin, McAnax and Posi Lock.

Alan Gethings is Managing Director of the JF Centre and he has been working and repairing JF harvesters for the last 25 years. Alan and his team have over 75 years’ experience working with all makes of agricultural machinery.

Alan also runs his own agri contracting business, Gethings Contractors Ltd. His father Ken set up Ken Gethings & Sons in 1968, which became Gethings Contractors Ltd in 2000.

Customers can see some of the machinery in use in Alan’s contracting business.

These include a Cross Engineering 2,500-gallon Super Tanker with Bomech 7.5-metre trailing shoe, a Series 4 TW55-4 Twose hedge cutter on a Massey Ferguson 390

and a Twose hedge cutter Series 5 TW67T-5 on a Case CS130 using precision proportional controls.

Alan has a contract to cut hedges and trim verges for Offaly County Council, so these hedge cutters are in regular use.

Alan runs five Case tractors – a CVX 1155, a CVX 1195, two CS 150s and a CASE IH cs- 130 and a Massey Ferguson 390.

His local Case dealer is WR Shaw – who are better known as New Holland dealers in Tullamore.

In addition Alan operates two Red Rock loading shovels, a Deutz Fahr 4065 combine harvester, two Twose hedge-cutters, six 18ft Dooley silage trailers, three Kverneland mowers and corn drills and a 4,000-gallon Hi-Spec slurry tanker, which draws sludge for the Offaly County Council, acting on behalf of Irish Water.

So there is no doubt that Alan knows a lot about farm machinery.

The JF Centre has almost 3,200 followers on Facebook.