Ton Moors was one of the first Dutch vegetable growers to start using GPS-guidance in 2004. He recently adopted controlled traffic farming and hopes it will help him to increase lettuce production by 5-10%.
effect on growth, specifically because all trac- tors have now been converted and the soil is turned in the same track as the planting. “The plants now develop more fully. The central rows used to grow slightly better than the rows down the sides.” He cuts ten large heads into a box. Anything that is undersized is thrown away. The smaller collapsible crate is used for smaller selections. “This is why we al- ways look for the right locations for sales in boxes. Ideally, I would like a continuous har- vest across an entire field, but that’s never yet happened in 25 years.”
Pioneer in vegetables In 2004, Mr Moors was among the pioneers of precision farming, and he tested out the first GPS-guided tractors. Now, all his farm vehicles have an autosteer system installed. “Since the start, they know to call me whenever they want to carry out experiments.” He explains how three colleagues bought a drone in order to produce prescription maps for spraying and fertilising,
but the project is still in the early stages. The up- shot of it is that equipment and/or the proce- dure requires adjustment, which is quite expen- sive. What is applicable in practice, however, is
Company profile
Ton Moors, company name Moorsagri, grows 50 hectares of iceberg lettuce, 40 hectares of celeriac and 40 hectares of seed potatoes in Wieringerwerf, in the north-west of the Netherlands. Mr Moors describes his aim as being able to maintain the overall organisa- tion and to have an alternative available for personnel in bad weather. Crops are grown in 3m-wide beds, and all tractors and ma- chinery have been adapted to fit. He opted for this system to keep the soil structure in- tact and to allow the plants to develop more fully. Mr Moors is a ‘non-affiliated’ grower, with a few large customers whom he sup- plies on the basis of weekly prices.
▶ FUTURE FARMING | 1 november 2019 39
fertilising on the basis of soil scans. “This is a project organised by The Soil Company,” ex- plains Mr Moors. “A higher or lower amount of fertiliser is applied based on the lutum
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