Farmer and wine grower Gaël Dupont from France explaining his experience and advantages of the Kverneland iXtrack T4 trailed sprayer.
“I'm on a mixed-crop farm and I'm trying to work towards growing in an agro-ecological way. This means that I'm still using chemicals to protect my crops, but less and less manufactured chemicals and more natural materials made from plants steeping, fermenting, things like that. The goal is to use less synthetic chemicals on the farm, so that we can get the HVE "High Environmental Valuation" certification and eventually switch to organic farming.”
“Despite converting to organic farming practices, the sprayer is proving more than useful because, to spray organic chemicals, we need the possibility of different tank capacities. There are some chemicals that we apply at a very low rate per hectare around 58 l/ha and others will be applied at 250 l/ha, so more tank capacity is needed. A very versatile and efficient sprayer is needed because timing of application is also very important. Since we are working with organic products, sometimes they need to be applied within two hours.”
“The sprayer project began 4 years ago and at that time we considered different brands but we decided to go with Kverneland. Kverneland offered to work together on the development of a new sprayer, because my colleague and I had a lot of requirements for this project. We wanted a fully automated rinsing and single nozzle control so they developed a new sprayer. We tested the first machine together with Kverneland, to see what improvements would be possible. And two and a half years later, we are using the model that was produced. So the one is one year old. We have sprayed around 5000 hectares.”
“During spraying we drive at a working speed between 12 and 18km/h due to soil monitoring. So at 18 km/h, it is one hectare per minute. When we are at high speed, even in somewhat complicated fields, the boom follows very well. In extreme field conditions we add 10 to 20cm to the boom height because the boom is 36m wide so it would touch at one end.”
“On this sprayer we have single nozzle control. Kverneland offered it to us for testing and we were very interested in it because we have plenty of triangular shaped fields where we need to avoid overlap. This sprayer has electric nozzle control, with continuous circulation so it works really well to avoid overlaps. I also see a difference when applying liquid fertiliser, no more crops laying on the floor in the headlands. The big advantage is that we always spray the right amount of chemical on the exact field area. There are no overlaps.”
“One of our main selection criteria this sprayer was also the size of the chemical inductor. Most of the competitors had very small inductors which did not inspire me. This one is really deep, works with a venturi system and has a high sucking power. To induct my fermented natural products, I bring my 1000l tank just above the chemical inductor open the valve and the sucking power of the inductor keeps up with the filling hose which has an approximate output of 100 l/min. That’s good because we save time when filling.”
“In the cab, we have the IsoMatch Tellus PRO terminal, a large screen split in two. At the top we have the GPS guidance and automatic nozzle control screen and at the bottom we have all the management of the sprayer and the boom. Additionally we have the IsoMatch Grip joystick which combines all of the functions that we require because it Is configurable, so we can program any available functions where we want, on any button. That way I always have a hand on the joystick to monitor the sprayer. The advantage of having the large screen is clear visibility.”
“If we had to do it again, we would make it the same. We are really satisfied with the sprayer, so we don't see why we would go for another model.”
6 January 2022
