Amazing Amazone drill - 75 years and counting
This year marks the 75th anniversary of the first Amazone seed drill – the 2m wide horse-drawn D1 launched in 1949.
It consolidates all fertiliser testing, data management and information transfer services for fertiliser spreading, including the existing fertiliser service, material laboratory testing and the test halls at the company’s Hasbergen-Gaste factory.
Fertiliser service provides recommended settings for thousands of fertilisers, accessible via phone, email, fax and WhatsApp; the material laboratory testing service is an international database that provides the spreading characteristics for thousands of different fertilisers.
CLAAS Harvest Centre product manager Amazone, Blair McAlwee, says “the testing service is open to all customers, wherever they are in the world; simply send in a 5kg fertiliser sample and Amazone will test it, determine the best settings and then add it to the database”.
Amazone uses up-to-date data processing, simulation and analysis tools to create its spreading charts and setting recommendations, and the testing hall is used to test the impact of challenging environments, such as windy conditions or undulating terrain, upon lateral and spatial distribution.
The size of the test hall allows two spreaders to be tested concurrently and can perform up to 100 separate tests each day.
The aim is to simulate field conditions inside, determine the best settings and then validate them in the field.
This is said to guarantee not only the effectiveness of the spreaders but the accuracy, consistency and reliability of Amazone’s recommended settings.
