Medals for new products introduced by agricultural machinery manufacturers at Agritechnica, awarded by the German Agricultural Society (DLG), are the most important award for innovative developments in this segment. Horsch will receive two silver medals in 2013 for the developments it presented.
HORSCH was the first among seeding equipment manufacturers to develop a solution for high-speed precision sowing of grain crops. The innovative metering unit is used with disc-type seeding machines such as the Pronto DC or Focus TD. Pneumatic seed delivery comes from a centrally located hopper fitted with a roller-type metering unit.
From the seed hopper to the seeding coulter, the design remains identical to that used on conventional pneumatic seed drills. But the TurboDisc seeding coulter itself looks revolutionary – it’s fitted with its own individual metering unit.
Its patented design can meter at a very high frequency – up to 120 Hz, which corresponds to sowing 120 seeds/min at a speed of 10-12 km/h. This allows working with seeding rates of up to 240 seeds/m2 while keeping row spacing at 15 cm. In real field conditions, the patented metering system can achieve a coefficient of variation in the range of 30…50%, matching the parameters of classic precision seeders.
Horsch received its second silver medal for its revolutionary development in automatic sprayer boom-position control. The innovative patented system, called BoomControl, allows spraying crops at a minimum distance from the plants. The technical basis for this solution is an independently suspended boom mounted to the sprayer’s chassis, which dampens the machine’s movements even when working on fields with complex terrain. At the same time, the boom reacts to any changes in crop height with extremely high speed and precision, ultimately allowing spraying at a distance of 30 cm from the tops of the plants, at speeds of up to 30 km/h.
