Farming smarter with technology
The National Fieldays is an annual fixture in the farming calendar: it draws in thousands of farmers, contractors, and industry professionals from across the country.
Users will have more control during spraying operations with Amazone’s new DirectInject system.
It allows for the inclusion of supplementary crop protection products on the move while spraying.
Claas Harvest Centre Amazone product manager Joshua Patrick says farmers and contractors are constantly faced with new demands during spraying operations. As new products emerge and new technologies develop, farmers and contractors are increasingly asked to apply specific additional products, often to address a particular problem in a localised area of a paddock, or to refrain from spraying a specific product in environmentally-sensitive fields or bodies of water.
The DirectInject system allows the precise injection of specific products into the spray circuit, which can be stopped and started as required.
This means operators can now treat specific portions of the paddock with different agents, in just one pass – saving time and money.
The system consists of an additional 50-litre tank built into the storage compartment located on the right-hand side of Amazone’s UX 01 Super trailed spray unit. Easily filled from ground level, the tank is fitted with its own metering system and incorporates a mechanical agitator to keep the blend homogenous.
The DirectInject feed system can be used with UX 01 single-axle crop protection sprayers fitted with the AmaSwitch or AmaSelect single nozzle control and DUS pro high-pressure recirculation system.
It is activated from the cabin at the touch of a button as operators detect specific weeds that need to be controlled using the supplementary product. The layout of the system keeps the pre-mixed spray agent from the main tank separate from the supplementary plant product by using a second spray line across the boom.
Circulation of the main line is stopped when the secondary direct feed is activated, so product from the main tank is not mixed with the product from the secondary tank.
DirectInject can work with undiluted plant protection agents, allowing unused quantities to be returned to the original container.
Federated Farmers president Wayne Langford says the 2025 Fieldays has been one of more positive he has attended.
A fundraiser dinner held in conjunction with Fieldays raised over $300,000 for the Rural Support Trust.
Recent results from its 2024 financial year has seen global farm machinery player John Deere record a significant slump in the profits of its agricultural division over the last year, with a 64% drop in the last quarter of the year, compared to that of 2023.
An agribusiness, helping to turn a long-standing animal welfare and waste issue into a high-value protein stream for the dairy and red meat sector, has picked up a top innovation award at Fieldays.
The Fieldays Innovation Award winners have been announced with Auckland’s Ruminant Biotech taking out the Prototype Award.
Following twelve years of litigation, a conclusion could be in sight of Waikato’s controversial Plan Change 1 (PC1).
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