SOIL TECHNOLOGY ▶▶▶
Oliver Martin demonstrates the soil scan- ner at a field next to his farm. While hov- ering it between 20 and 45 cm above the ground, the soil electrical conductivity (ECa and ECt) is measured to determine various soil characteristics.
“Not a single field on earth is homogeneous”
BY RENÉ KOERHUIS U
pon arrival at the ‘Neuwiesenhof’ farm in Baden-Württemberg in south- west Germany, the first thing that catches the eye is a Fritzmeier Isaria
crop sensor. It was just used to sidedress nitro- gen fertiliser variable rate in winter wheat. “Shall I show you the rest of my precision farming equipment,” says Oliver Martin. The equipment includes an Amazone mounted sprayer, a brand- new Amazone Primera direct seed drill, a Claas Lexion combine harvester, an Amazone ZA-TS twin disc fertiliser spreader with Argus Twin ra- dar system, a Lemken Karat cultivator and a Kubota UTV with Fritzmeier soil sampler and the Geoprospectors Topsoil Mapper soil scanner. All machines are (made) Isobus compatible and capable of working variable rate (includ- ing the cultivator). “Some of the machines
There’s pioneers and there’s (extraordinary) pioneers. Arable farmer Oliver Martin defi nitely is of the latter category. He uses one of the fi rst Geoprospectors soil scanners ever produced, and his 160 hectares farm bursts with other high tech.
were modified on our request. Others we mod- ify or upgrade ourselves to suit our needs. There’s not a single machine or tractor on our farm that wasn’t modified!” All tractors and the combine harvester are equipped with inter- changeable Topcon RTK-GPS sets and electric auto-steering systems, and the combine har- vester is (of course) equipped with yield map- ping. He tries to apply controlled traffic farm- ing (CTF) where possible and uses 21m wide tramlines for spreading granular fertiliser and crop protection. The spreading width was low- ered from 24 to 21m to more accurately apply granular fertiliser. Crop protection is always
done between 2 and 7am to avoid evaporation and drift as much as possible and to be able to apply just 70% of the standard doses of chemi- cals. And if the wind catches up, his weather station aboard the tractor tells him to stop spraying… “I can also use it if necessary to afterwards prove that I was not violating the environmental rules during spraying.”
Very heterogenous soils The soil sample points on the 160-ha farm with an average field size of 2.03 ha and loess soil types differ from 24 to 94 with 100 points be- ing the best arable soil type. “So, all my fields
▶ FUTURE FARMING | 25 May 2018 15
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52
