The second part of the CB Norwood’s Precision Ag tour was
spent in Europe with machinery companies. First, we visited Vaderstad at Hogstadvägen in Sweden, then Lemken
in Germany, Horsch in Germany and finally New Holland in Belgium. All these
companies looked after us very well, for which we were most grateful.
Arriving in Sweden, the first thing we noticed was how dry
it was and how it was reflected in the stressed crops we saw travelling to the
Vaderstad factory. The same could be said of the crops we saw in Germany, but
to a slightly lesser extent.
Vaderstad showed us a vast range in cultivation and drilling
equipment but from a precision ag point view I was most interested in their E
system and Seed Eye technology and what it could mean to us in terms of
precision seed placement. The
sensors installed in each seed tube on the drill form the basis of the
Väderstad SeedEye. This gives the ability to register each seed that is metered
and drilling can be controlled down to the exact number of seeds per square
metre.
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| Figure 1: Vaderstad SeedEye system |
Next we went to Germany and visited Lemken, where we looked
about their HQ and factory. Again, a lot of cultivation and other equipment but
more of the traditional systems with various plough options. However, they too have very accurate seed planting options which would be very useful for
precision seeding.
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| Figure 2: Lemken precision drill seeding system using air pressure |
When we got to Horsch we had seen how the other companies
worked but I was surprised at the level of trial work and other extensions
Horsch were working on and how they were thinking outside the box. They were
doing trials on the effect of difference press wheels on root establishment,
different row spacing, seed rates and fertiliser rates down the spout. It was a
very comprehensive setup and very interesting results.
They ran through their different drilling options including
the Avatar with 3 hoppers to put different seed rates and types such as hybrid
wheat in different zones plus fertiliser in the third hopper.
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| Figure 3: The effect of different sowing techniques on root development in Oil Seed Rape |
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| Figure 4: Horsch Avatar drill with 3 hoppers |
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| Figure 5: Trials on seed and fertiliser rates at different row spacing |
All the systems we saw lent themselves well to Precision Ag and accurate seed rates per metre, which can be used in combination with
your EM maps, or other sources of spatial data such as yield maps or satellite
imagery.
On the second day at Horsch we had a good look around their
sprayers and the very impressive pro plus boom system that followed the crop
canopy at a height of just 30cm with various nozzle options including 25cm
spacing that reduced the effect of wind speed on your spraying window, giving
more spray days which is a very useful feature everyone needs.
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| Figure 6: Top spec nozzle system with 4 nozzles every 50cm and 2 nozzles at 25cm in-between |
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| Figure 7: Off to see the sprayer demos at Horsch |
Michael Horsch also touched
on the next stage in their sprayer development, with autonomous machines that
sprayed by themselves and the cameras learn the weeds they see in field and can
map them. All very exciting and not that far away. High spec sprayers are very
useful for variable rate PGR’s (plant growth regulators) or liquid nitrogen for example.
The final company we went to
see were New Holland, with their machinery from combines to Foragers. Using
their Precision Land Management system on control and measure. Yield maps are
the starting point for a lot of people’s journey into Precision Ag.
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| Figure 8: New Holland combine open for investigation! |
If you have any questions or
want anymore detail on what we saw, just get in touch.
On a personal level, it
was great to see what machinery is available and what we could do with it in the Precision Ag
space and to see that we’re not far behind the northern hemisphere in terms of
PA adoption, and in some instances, are actually leading the way.
Chris
