Tillage-Live 2012 is a great opportunity for growers to see and assess a wide range of cultivation equipment, sprayers and drills – many of which will be working.  Andy Collings  provides a glimpse of the latest developments on display.

New kit
Agrifac Agrifac’s new self-propelled sprayer – the Condor Liquid Plus – is able to apply suspension fertilisers that have a higher viscosity than normal spray solutions. Based on the standard Condor, the new sprayer has been equipped with a secondary spraying system to enable it to handle suspension fertiliser. Extra components include a second centrifugal pump, 7.5cm (3in) diameter pipework, special nozzles and a strengthened tank to accommodate the additional weight. The manufacturer says the Condor Liquid Plus sprayer can also be used for the spraying of pesticides – the original pipes, fittings and nozzles are still in place. Fitted with 36m booms and tank capacities from 3,000-5,000 litres, the Condor has air suspension and is powered by a 196hp Deutz engine. The transmission is hydrostatic using Linde wheel motors.
Farm-well Farm-Well, which markets the Farmtec rotary spader in the UK, will be demonstrating a one-pass combination system that links the spader to a power harrow and a drill, now imported by the company from Slovakia. The pneumatic Pneusej drill receives its seed from a 1,600-litre front-mounted hopper metered by an Accord unit to two rows of Suffolk coulters. With a working width of 3m, the recommended power requirement is 200hp and there are also 4m and 6m versions available.
Simba Great Plains For Simba Great Plains the Tillage-Live event will be an opportunity to demonstrate the Centurion drill for the first time – the company has now started manufacturing them and plans to have 20 available this autumn. The Centurion is a disc-based cultivator drill designed for use in min-till or on ploughing and is available in 4m and 6m builds. At the business end, the disc coulters each comprise a pair of 4mm discs staggered front/back by 8mm to enable a seed slot to be created. Up to 210kgs pressure can be exerted for heavy land penetration. Hopper capacity is 4,100 litres, which can be split for seed and fertiliser, and the metering system uses three interchangeable rollers to provide seed rates from 0.5-500kg/ha.
Reco For the majority of visitors to Tillage-Live the name Ovlac will be a new one. But Ovlac is Spain’s biggest manufacturer of ploughs and produces a range of conventional and reversible models from two- to eight-furrows, mounted and semi-mounted. Visitors to the event can see the first UK demonstration of the plough. now imported by Reco. The plough is a five-furrow reversible with leaf-spring auto-reset protection and hydraulic vari-width adjustment. Reco will also be demonstrating its Brevi power harrows, which were introduced to the UK market last November, and there are also plans to reveal a new front hopper drill from Sulky.
Sands Sprayers This year has highlighted the way heavy sprayers can cause soil compaction and damage and it is a message not lost on Sands Sprayers, which says it is now endeavouring to reduce the weight of its larger models with booms over 30m. The company will be displaying its 4,000-litre, 30m Vision self-propelled sprayer, fitted with auto-section control, GPS guidance and mapping. The company says it has been concentrating on the fitting of GPS systems, improving boom ride and providing greater operator comfort – there is now a totally redesigned climate control system on board.
Amazone Amazone’s new Citan 6000 6m solo drill will be fitted with the firm’s new GPS-Switch automated headland shut-off system – the first time it’s been seen in the UK. Visitors will also be able to assess Amazone’s latest approach to solving the increasing problem of grassweed carryover when employing one-pass cultivation programmes. The company is now advocating a “shallow and often” cultivation technique using its Catros compact disc harrow, which has an adjustable stagger between the front and rear row of discs. This, says Amazone, helps to ensure the total surface of the soil is moved, even at depths of less than 5cm. The aim is to create good stale seed-bed conditions in which volunteers and weed seeds can germinate and make the best possible use of the time between harvesting and drilling.
Horsch Among the machines working on the Horsch site will be the company’s first public outing for its Terrano 4 MT primary cultivator, which complements the existing FX and FM models. Unlike the FM, which has been designed for shallow stubble cultivation, the Terrano MT’s mode of action is to mix soils on the surface and loosen at depth. From the front, there are two rows of scalloped discs, followed by large-diameter transport wheels, which are normally fully raised when working. Behind these is a set of rigid, spring-loaded tines spaced at 44cm, then the levelling discs and a press. Working widths of 4.2m and 6m are available – the 6m requires a minimum of 400hp.
Kuhn The French firm’s new semi-mounted reversible plough range will be making its debut appearance at the event. The single-wheel Multi-Leader is described as being a high-output implement for medium- to high-power tractors and is available in six-, seven- and eight-furrow builds. Features include the ability to handle a 110-degree turning radius and provide furrow widths of 35cm, 40cm, 45cm and 50cm. A Z-frame design results in only a small amount of overhang during work at field edges and also allows use of wide tyres up to 1,200mm in diameter. Working depth is set by using spacers on the lift cylinder at the wheel. Underbeam clearance is 80cm and point-to-point distance 102cm. There is a choice of either a shearbolt or a non-stop hydraulic system.
Vogelsang Vogelsang has joined the strip tillage scene and is set to launch its XTill system at the Tillage-Live event. Designed for use by maize growers, the XTill is an eight-row, tanker-mounted distributor which places slurry into eight cultivated strips. Each cultivator unit comprises a cutting disc followed by an angled star wheel to clear away surface trash and then a coulter which places slurry to a depth of 10-25cm. Pairs of angled discs then refill the slot created by the coulter and the ground then is firmed by a pair of steel or rubber press wheels. Five days later, using the positioning precision allowed by GPS, maize can be drilled along the same rows, says the manufacturer.
Ryetec Ryetec will be showing the Agrex range of tractor-mounted fertiliser spreaders, which it now imports from Italy, for the first time at Tillage-Live. The centrepiece will be the 3t capacity DDI, fitted with a Kylo weigh-cell system that provides a speed-related, self-calibrated and automatic application rate system. Twin discs create spreading widths of up to 32m and, to help with accuracy, these machines draw on the recorded spreading characteristics of commonly used fertiliser types. Headland spreading is controlled by a hydraulically lowered deflector that can be fitted to the left- or right-hand side of the spreader.

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