15 February 2011

Flat packer roller

When the plants have grown and they have a height of about 5cm, we roll the fields in dry days with two clear goals mainly: the first, we have to compact the fields in order to help plants growing sooner and the second, we want to hide all stones with the purpose of avoiding problems in the harvesting time.

We have a new flat packer roller this time. This flat packer roller width is of 4m and its diameter is of 65cm. It can be filled of water, but we have it empty because it has enough weight to our work. I would like to highlight this flat packer roller has two hydraulic cylinders which we can change from transport position to working position very easy.

As you can see in our pictures and watch on our video, the working speed is high (about 9.5km/h) and our DF Agrotron 85 uses a street gear. So, we can work large amounts of land per day, despite this, we usually start to roll at midday when the plants are dry of the dew of the night.

You can watch a video from here: Video

























09 February 2011

Picking up vine shoots

Last Saturday, we went to visit to Aquilino Tolosa who was in his vineyard. After pruning, he was using his Lamborghini 775-V and a sweeper to pick up vine shoots.

This sweeper has two hydraulic engines which rotate two brooms to join all vine shoots. Then, the vine shoots are put in a basket the tractor has behind.

You can watch a video from here: Video













07 February 2011

Fertilizing with Amazone centrifugal broadcaster

We are starting with second fertilizer stage. The first time we fertilized was before sowing and we need to fertilize again. Regarding the third fertilizer stage, we will give details at some future time.

In this occasion, we use two types of fertilizer: Urea 46% and Marte 45. We are going to speak about them below.

Urea 46%:
  • It only has Amide Nitrogen: 46%
  • It is black and its granules are 2-4mm.
  • We use about 210kg/he.

Marte 45:
  • Its composition is: Ammoniacal Nitrogen (NH4): 5%.
  • Urea Nitrogen: 35%.
  • Sulfur (SO3): 12.5%
  • We use about 240kg/he
  • It is red and its granules are 1-4mm.

These fertilizers are high quality and they are a big source of Nitrogen. They are able to cover slowly, gradualy and progressively all our crops' needs ... specially cereals and garlic. N/SO3 is a mix which can enhance our crops' growth and it allow us to have a better resistance against fungal diseases, drought period,... These fertilizers are available in bulk, bag of 50kg and big bag of 1000kg.

As you can see in my pictures, we are using an AMAZONE ZA-X 902 Perfect centrifugal broadcaster with hopper sizes of 900 litres. In addition the ZA-X 902 can be increased to 1700 litres by adding the extension L 800. These extensions can be retrofitted at any time. The shallow hopper with its steep hopper walls allows a low filling height from 91 cm and guarantees an even fertiliser flow. Easy attachment to the tractor, always level and at a same mounting height. Accurate spread pattern at working widths from 10 m to 18 m,urea up to 15 m. To prevent any corrosion and for high functional safety the entire spreading device (hopper bottom, spreading discs and deflector plate) is made from stainless steel. The spread rate adjustment with its two individual setting shutter slides is located well out of the "dirt range". The Omnia-Set spreading discs with swivelable spreading vanes provide a particularly precise spread pattern. The oil-immersed gearbox is the indestructible heart of this AMAZONE twin disc spreader. The twin hopper design gives optimised steep hopper walls which guarantee a very constant fertiliser flow. The standard hydraulically actuated independent shutter control for either both or individual right hand and left hand side control enables the comfortable operation of the spreade. The folding lockable sieve is fitted as standard to prevent foreign particles getting into the shutter apertures and is particularly useful where fertiliser is stored and loaded in bulk, e. g. with a front loader.

We use it with a configuration of 15m of distance and 12 km/h of speed. Using this configuration we can work on everywhere and in different conditions.

As far as I'm concerned, I think Germany Amazone ZA-X 902 is the best centrifugal broadcaster on the market and possibly one of the most expensive. Amazone distinguishs by high quality in its products and very specially in broadcaster and seed drills.

You can watch two videos from here: Video 1 Video 2