CULTIVATION AND TECHNOLOGY Planting in 2016: more than just putting tubers into the ground should be shorter or longer? These are all questions we have no precise answers for. We’re currently busy mapping out our soils, the soil composition, fertilisation situation, etc. When we have the details about that, we can start thinking about the ways of transferring the data to the technology. The next consideration will be how much money you want to spend on it and whether you really want to build even more gadgets onto the planting machines. We now have mechanically-driven planting machines, but if you want to be more precise we’ll need a hydraulic drive. To change that we’ll have to replace ‘A planting machine should not be turned into a chemist. Spray nozzles can get blocked, hoses can leak, which means you have to stop planting.’ both our planting machines in one go and that will cost at least 100,000 euros. And we could also start thinking about an appliance for nitrogen fertiliser on the planting machines. So far, we’ve sprayed the nitrogen as a liquid in the field, right before cultivating. In my opinion, this division is just fine, so I’m not thinking of changing that. As you realise, we’re still cultivating separately. We could also do that in one work passage, but I don’t really see the advantage of it. We’ve built fertiliser and granulate units onto our cultivators. The granulate unit is for applying Vydate against nematodes, which we only use with the Innovator variety. The fertiliser unit is only meant to apply a mix of potassium and nitrogen on the field borders. Our fertiliser distributors with their enormous spray widths are too inaccurate for the borders of the plots. That’s why we often want to compensate for the lower application with an extra dose during cultivating. We could also put that on the planting machine, but that will give too much weight for my liking.’ Not yet all-in-one In Evenhuis’ view, weight is also a disadvantage of a total allin-one system. ‘We’ve already put all kinds of appliances on the tractor and this would be another one. In addition, we attach a lot of value to fast-warming the soil and initial growth of the seed potatoes. A neighbour also had an all-in-one system a few years ago, but went back to separate planting and cultivating because of lower crop emergence. What’s more, it requires a considerable investment to change over from the present planting machines to an all-in-one. For us, the investment will cost 180,000 to 185,000 euros. Another point is that it definitely won’t increase the planting capacity. But it’s true that this is only the situation now. Technology may have improved so much in x number of years that I may change over to one of those systems after all. ● Leo Hanse 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’. Potato World 2016 • number 1 43 Pagina 42

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