CULTIVATION AND TECHNOLOGY Planting in 2016: more than just putting tubers into the ground ment against Rhizoctonia. We prefer to do this with a disc atomiser in the storeroom immediately after gleaning and grading. You could also apply the chemical from the planting machines via a system with spray nozzles, but I prefer the distribution with a disc atomiser where the tubers move across the roller table. Also, I feel that we’ll then get too much equipment on the planting machine. A planting machine shouldn‘t become a chemist. Spray nozzles can become blocked, hoses may start leaking and if that happens, planting comes to a standstill. Anyway, we’ve already mounted a spraying station on the planter, which we use for an Amistar soil treatment against Rhizoctonia. In phosphate-fixing soils, we sometimes add a little polyphosphate.’ Not too much weight on the soil The spraying station on every planting combination consists of two liquid tanks, a robust, power take-off-driven 2-cylinder pump, the requisite hoses, a control unit and a spraying station at the bottom of the planting unit. and two on the inside of the ridging discs. All the equipment has been chosen and combined by Evenhuis and his workforce and mounted on the planting machines. ‘We have a suitable workshop, we take ample time for the maintenance of the machines and we have a creative team that’s perfectly capable of assembling equipment like this. With the current equipment on the planting machine it’s no easy task to keep it all working’, says Evenhuis. The greatest bottleneck, he feels, is having to drag the water around. First of all, this requires one or more liquid tanks. ‘We prepare the seed bed with a spring tine harrow in front of the tractors. We mounted two 400-litre tanks on each harrow. This is already more than enough, because I don’t want too much weight on my land.’ Terrible nuisance The second bottleneck is the water supply, sometimes combined with the slurry. The plots are up to 25 kilometres from our farm, which causes some obvious logistical headaches. Once we’re under way, we work with 2 machines on 1 plot of land. That’s the most efficient, because you only need to transport seed, water, fertiliser and chemicals to one spot. At the moment, I’m still carrying a 1,000-litre container on a trailer behind the car to the various plots, but that’s really a terrible nuisance. That’s why we’re now looking for an alternative. The idea is to build two separate water tanks on the sides of the tipper with some space in between into which the seed can roll so that it can leave the tipper through the ‘grain outlet’. We want the tanks to be large enough to hold as much water as is necessary for treating all the seed in the tipper. As the tanks are placed in the tipping bucket we don’t need a pump to empty them. Apply polyphosphate separately If this is a success, we’ll need another logistics system for the supply of polyphosphate on the phosphate-fixing plots. ‘So far I’ve been taking along a 1,000 litre container with a complete There are increasing problems with wireworms in the cultivation of potatoes, which is why the planting machines are usually equipped with a granulate spreader. We mounted two 400-litre tanks on each front harrow. This is already more than enough, because Evenhuis doesn’t want too much weight on his land. The spraying station that’s mounted on the planting machine contains Amistar for soil treatment against Rhizoctonia. In phosphate-fixing soils, we sometimes add a little polyphosphate. Potato World 2016 • number 1 41 Pagina 40
Pagina 42Heeft u een uitgave, pageflip of e-lesboeken? Gebruik Online Touch: maandblad converteren naar een digitale publicatie.
Potatoworld 2016/1 Lees publicatie 39Home