Boosting Crop Production by Spreading Effluent
Tararua district farmer Jamie Harris milks around 400 cows using a split calving system on his farm, Crossdale Dairies.
Precision drill manufacturer Vaderstad will use the Agritechnica event in November to launch such new technology for its Tempo V6-12 drills to make the practice much easier.
Its WideLining system is the world’s first tramlining system which enables farmers and growers to spread liquid manure in a standing crop without compromising yield potential.
Rather than shutting off row units to create tramlines, the system automatically changes the row spacing on the planter hydraulically, to create two 1050mm tyre tracks, so ensuring all row units plant at full capacity. In the body of the crop, the row spacing between the tyre tracks will reduce from 750mm to 600mm without compromising plant numbers.
Integrated into Vaderstad’s iPad-based, E-Control system,
when activated, the machine will calculate the field size and automatically adjust the row units to create tramlines based on the working width of the liquid manure spreader.
In practice, when planting silage maize with an eight row planter and intending to use a slurry tanker with a 18m working width, the drill will plant 8.3% more seeds in the field than alternative technologies now available.
