Machinery
First robotic tractor goes
to work on Suffolk farm • Driverless machine weeds leeks in field • Makes light work of repetitive farm jobs • Good performance over range of crops
T
he UK’s first commercial- ly available robotic trac- tor has gone to work on a Suffolk farm – weeding leeks and solving a labour shortage. Better technology – and diffi- culty sourcing seasonal workers – meant a major investment for Home Farm Nacton on the out- skirts of Ipswich. The Robotti 150D from Danish manufactur- er Agrointelli is believed to have cost an estimated £160,000. The fresh produce farm grows both organic and conventional vegetables, including a range of brassicas and root crops.
Right step forward Home Farm farms director An- drew Williams (right) said he heard about the Robotti from Gordon Cummings, machinery manager at Fram Farmers, who has been researching the use of robotics in the fresh produce sec- tor for the past two years.
Mr Williams said: “Gordon
put us in touch with the team at Agrointelli, who have been enor- mously helpful and knowledgea- ble. By January, I had approval from Home Farm’s board of direc- tors, who were convinced this was the right step forward.” He added: “From a business point of view, we are confident that this is where the future lies. A large amount of our produce is organic, so we are increasing- ly limited in how we can control weeds. “Mechanical weeding is repet- itive work, as is manual weeding, and sourcing seasonal, overseas labour is becoming increasing- ly difficult. We wanted to fu- ture-proof the farm and Robotti is perfectly suited to our set-up.” The Robotti 150D has now been in operation on the farm since mid-April, weeding a num- ber of vegetable crops using a har- row attachment. Agrointelli says
it is one of 50 robots which will be working across Europe by the end of the year.
“It can be in operation 24 hours a day, so there is a long window of opportunity for it to make a difference in the crucial weeding stages of the crops, fit- ting well into our cropping plan,” said Mr Williams.
“It does exactly what we need, moving soil in the early stage of growth with guaranteed preci-
sion. It will initially be used for weeding this year, but we also plan to use it for topping and drilling in the future, maybe even transplanting.”
The Robotti is autonomous- ly controlled by GPS via an on- board computer. This means it does not depend on a human driv- er, instead following a pre-pro- grammed planned route in the field.
Technical details The model at Home Farm has two Kubota 75hp diesel engines. The left engine propels the ma- chine and powers a convention- al three-point hitch. The right engine drives the power take- off which drives the implements. The machine can be fitted with standard implements and per- form multiple tasks in the field throughout the season. Each en- gine takes 110 litres of fuel, which is enough for the machine to run continuously for approximately 24 hours.
“The accuracy lies in the GPS mapped field, with Robotti taking the same exact lines every time,” explains Agrointelli sales manag- er Frederik Rom. “It is equipped with RTK GPS, so the set up on any farm is simple.
“It took approximately 10 min- utes to map a 1.6ha (4 acre) field at Home Farm, and a further 10 Continued on p71
JUNE 2021 • ANGLIA FARMER 69
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