Fertilizer spreaders, apart from sprayers, are among the fastest technologically developing machines today. Every year, solutions appear to bring you closer to achieving the perfect treatment. And the challenges associated with it are not so obvious.
When designing spreaders, Amazone is facing a new problem of our times, i.e. the fact that most fertilizers do not come from the European market. The transport of fertilizers, often through waterways, has a destructive impact on the already sensitive granulometric composition.
− In recent years, approx. 50 percent fertilizers that were used in Polish fields were imported. By 2022, approximately 70 percent of them came from 4 countries: Russia, Lithuania, Belarus and Germany. However, as we know perfectly well, as a result of various international events and trade restrictions, fertilizers began to be imported from all over the world – not only from Europe. Currently, more and more fertilizers are imported from, among others, Canada, the USA, as well as from Oman, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan and various other exotic countries for us – said Marcin Kurzyński from Amazone Polska.
Amazone has been producing spreaders for 100 years. Each year, they are designed to meet the emerging requirements and challenges of current agriculture. Marcin Kurzyński talked about this during a meeting organized by Tech-Kom as part of the Amazone Crop Care Tour. photo: AdK
International trade in mineral fertilizers – loading may damage the fertilizer
The increased import of mineral fertilizers in recent years is also a challenge for machine manufacturers. It turns out that where they come from and the route they have taken affects how the spreader works and, consequently, also the final yield.
The trade routes that mineral fertilizers have to cross have become very long. And their composition is very sensitive to external factors, e.g. overloading – especially on ships.
Fertilizer is a sensitive and heterogeneous product. The photo shows differences in the granulometric composition of urea in individual years. photo: Amazone Polska materials, Marcin Kurzyński
− We, as a machinery manufacturer, also face the destructive impact of long transport routes on fertilizers. When comparing fertilizers, we see how much they differ. Therefore, when sowing fertilizer, we should actually check what the fertilizer looks like every time. All information contained in the seeding table, in the application or on our website must be updated each time due to the grain size composition – explains Marcin Kurzyński.
Amazone examined how changing the granulometric composition of the fertilizer affects the quality of coverage. photo: Amazone Polska materials, Marcin Kurzyński.
The difference in fertilizer is the difference in the spreading pattern
The challenge in designing modern spreaders is to achieve perfect fertilizer spreading and to introduce settings into the machines that will allow for perfect coverage not only when the wind is unfavorable, but also when the quality of fertilizer is variable – and this happens more and more often.
− In the past, the main emphasis was on accurate fertilizer application. Nowadays, more and more attention is paid to optimal lateral distribution and uniformity of spreading. If we spread it evenly, but the dose is not correct, we can simply correct it with the next entry. If we spread the fertilizer with the appropriate dose, but not evenly, we will not be able to correct this pathology – adds Marcin Kurzyński.
The same fertilizer with different granulometric composition affects the quality of the uniform coverage of the field – it turns out that the coverage can be different by up to 5%.
Examples of deviations in the spread pattern caused by wind, and the deviation of the driving track should be up to 15%. If there are deviations caused by the quality of the fertilizer, it will be up to 20%. which exceeds the values of correct coverage.
We wrote about the solutions Amazone introduced to its machines in a previous article from Tech-Kom field shows:
