PHOTOS: LEX SALVERDA
AUTONOMOUS DRIVING ▶▶▶
Precision pioneer in iceberg lettuce and celeriac
T BY MARGA VAN DER MEER
on Moors farms on 130 hectares in the north-west of the Netherlands. Apart from growing iceberg lettuce (50 ha) and celeriac (40 ha), he also
grows 40 hectares of seed potatoes. Behind the farmhouse are barns for storing and sort- ing potatoes, while the shed houses wide- track tractors and machinery. Trays of celeriac plugs are laid outside waiting to be planted. From early March until the first week of Au- gust, Mr Moors plants around two hectares of iceberg lettuce every week, covering a total of 50 hectares. What is unique about the farm is that it has been growing crops in wide beds for nine years. Another characteristic is that Mr Moors is one of the few remaining non- affiliated growers, maintaining his own trade contacts. “Sure, it’s time-consuming, but it broadens my perspective.”
Booms like wings The region’s iceberg lettuce growers already attracted attention many years ago due to their arable-like approach, and what makes Mr Moors special, is his wide harvester with booms like wings. The colossal structure is covered with a white tarpaulin and can only be moved using a low-loader. Five Polish and 12 Romanian workers are employed to cut the lettuce every day and bag them on-site. “Box- es come along the top and the full ones are transported to the centre of the machine where they are stacked,” explains Mr Moors. “They are unloaded manually and placed on a pallet. Unfortunately, we were unable to automate that last step.” Since Ton Moors be- gan running the farm alone after the depar- ture of his uncle Peter, the acreage has shrunk from 80 to 50 hectares. “Towards summer, we were cutting three cart-loads per day, with 9,800 heads per cart. Later, that reduced to two carts per day.” A calculation shows that around two hectares are being harvested per week.
38
Ton Moors was one of the first Dutch vegetable growers to start using GPS-guidance in 2004. Ever since, he’s been carrying out precision experiments and helping colleagues getting started. He recently adopted controlled traffic farming and hopes it will help him to increase lettuce production by 5-10%. As a non- affiliated grower, he maintains his own trade contacts and is satisfied with that situation.
Controlled traffic farming Mr Moors began growing in 3m-wide beds when he invested in a self-propelled sprayer. It enabled the total number of plants per hectare to increase by 8% to 82,000, and he built an eight-row planting machine “The tracks and the larger width allow us to retain the soil structure as much as possible.” The distance between rows is 38cm and the plants are spaced about 28cm apart. This is not an exact figure, as with this system, the soil drainage determines how the plants will turn out. The workers use a special shovel to place the plants
onto the conveyor in tens. Mr Moors also ap- plies the principle of controlled traffic farming. “The idea is to carry out all of your soil cultiva- tion in the same tracks. Ideally, you should turn the soil instead of ploughing and use the rota- ry cultivator before planting. The intention is to increase production by 5-10%.” In practice, he grows lettuce on leased land and is still ploughing for the time being. “We use a Kver- neland six share plough, which is able to plough onland and in the furrow. The depth varies between 15 and 30 cm, you might call it an ‘eco-plough’.” Mr Moors says he can see an
Mr Moors began growing in 3m-wide beds when he invested in a self-propelled sprayer. Now, all his tractors are rebuilt to 3m track widths.
▶ FUTURE FARMING | 1 november 2019
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
