Farmers with the Farmdroid FD20: learning by doing (2) On the occasion of the 500th Farmdroid, there is now the Limited Black Edition. – Photo: Farmdroid Denmark Dutch chicory company Sensus has rolled out the red carpet for the Farmdroid FD20 . With a substantial sustainability bonus, the chicory processor supports growers who are experimenting with the field robot. A tour among the early adopters reveals that they are eager to make the alternative weed control approach work, but it does not immediately go smoothly. In this second article we will discuss the experiences of farmers. In the first article we showed the start of the project and the ideas of Sensus.
With 900 kilos quickly onto the field The Farmdroid FD20 has a working width of 3 meters. A capacity of up to 20 hectares, working speed up to a maximum of 950 meters per hour. Due to its low weight of 900 kilos, it can enter the field (again) as soon as the top layer has dried. Advanced GPS technology with two antennas and supported by an RTK station makes extremely precise work possible. The adjustable row distance is from 22.5 to 75 centimeters. Equipped with spot spray installation, the machine costs €100,000.
Foreseeable payback time The most sold Farmdroid seeding and hoeing robots cost €100,000: €85,000 for the basic machine and €15,000 for the spot spray provision. With this, herbicide can be sprayed above the seed during seeding, or later during hoeing above the plants. The payback time depends heavily on the chosen starting points. Below three situations.
For organic cultivation: Organic farmer Mark Buijsen reasons as follows: going through the onions with the hoe costs just over six man hours at €30 = €180. Eight to ten rounds then make a cost item of €1,440 to €1,800. A robot on 10 hectares of onions would then save something between €15,000 and €18,000 in manual labor. That comes down to a payback time of 6 to 7 years.
For chicory cultivation: The sustainability bonus from Sensus that can be obtained by using the Farmdroid amounts to 20 x €15/ton x 50 tons/hectare = €15,000 per year at 20 hectares. In addition, there is a saving because no or fewer herbicides are sprayed. There is also less yield loss from chicory pests due to herbicides. If all goes well, then an attractive picture of Farmdroid versus conventional arises: Self-seeding €125/ha No herbicides €300/ha Not spraying €120/ha (4x after emergence at €30) Saving manual labor €150/ha More yield €650 (10% of €6,500/ha) Sustainability bonus €750/ha Total: €2,095/ha From this sum of saved costs and increased yield, the Farmdroid can be paid for.
For sugar beets: Seeding 20 hectares with the Farmdroid saves twenty times €120 in seeding costs, six weed spraying of €40 in means and €25 in spraying wages per hectare. Total about €10,000 per year. Then it would be paid back in ten years. Not quite if you also count 10% of the normal herbicide for the Farmdroid with spot spray (€24/ha). Incidentally, under the circumstances of last spring, an area of 20 hectares per robot is on the high side.
‘Machine seeds very neatly, requires a lot of attention’ Dutch farmer Kees van Dijk took a Farmdroid seeding and hoeing robot into use last year.
With a colleague, Van Dijk then grew 13 hectares of chicory on light clay. This year 21 hectares. The machine was purchased with a subsidy of 40% as part of the POP3+ 2022 Investment Scheme for a more sustainable agricultural business.
Van Dijk notes that the robot seeds ‘so wonderfully neatly’. “The emergence is therefore incredibly regular. Better than with a classic seeding machine, which races compared to the robot over the land. 4 to 5 kilometers per hour versus the 400 meters per hour. Each seed is gently and precisely placed and then gently pressed by the wheel afterwards.” The spot sprayer sprayed a strong dose of Kerp in a square of 4×4 centimeters around the seed during seeding.
The farmer finds that the robot requires quite a bit of attention, more than he expected. “There is quite often a malfunction: dust in the seed, Kerp quickly settles, which you should stir extra. It’s too wet, the soil is too hard. You have to go there quite often. The machine requires a lot of attention.” But overall, Van Dijk’s answer to the question of how it goes with the Farmdroid is: “Yes, it’s going well.”
Kees van Dijk. – Photos: Jan Willem Schouten ‘Field must lie extremely flat’ Dutch arable farmer Hendrik Luth is experimenting with a Farmdroid from Abemec in a plot of just over one hectare of onions on sandy soil with a lot of weed seeds.
Luth wants to grow the onions in principle without chemicals, but be able to intervene if necessary. So far, the result has not been up to his expectations, he tells us on the phone when we ask how the experiment is going so far. In the evening he calls back. The photographer may come for a portrait photo, but preferably not look in the field. “Between the rows it’s still okay, but in the row the robot left a lot standing. The moving hoe hardly touched the ground. It is clear that for good operation your field must lie extremely flat.” Luth is also not entirely satisfied with the clusters of onion seeds that the robot has placed.
Luth does not attribute the substandard result so far to the machine. “It’s because we made mistakes. There are many adjustment options on the machine.” Even so, Luth continues to find the Farmdroid fits in a system of local food production with a minimum of chemical weed control. He also does not find hand weeding by Eastern Europeans fitting in a local system.
Hendrik Luth. – Photo: Hans Banus ‘Partly hoeing with the robot, partly chemical with Ecorobotix’ Dutch farmer Joost Derks sowed 8.1 hectares of sugar beets with the Farmdroid on May 15 this year.
In the meantime, the robot has gone around hoeing four times. Less than last year when the robot sowed 10 hectares of sugar beets, and 12 hectares of chicory. Especially in the chicory it became a drama, partly due to unfamiliarity with the possibilities of the machine. Fat hens dominated the image of the chicory plot.
“Colleagues told me: if that robot delivers such work, it’s actually not practice-ready. Then you can’t really start with it yet. I say: it is practice-ready, we just have to learn to work with it. So just start with it. We have to get to work anyway with ways to cultivate with less chemicals.” This year, therefore, only sugar beets. That plot was the first competent one. “We even got those 8.1 hectares of beets in with difficulty. With constant rain, logistics become difficult. You don’t want to prepare more land than you can immediately seed. That’s planning a lot with extreme weather like that of last spring. With classic seeding, you can make strides. Per day 30 hectares and more, 50 hectares if you make a long day of it.”
Like others, Derks also sees that land for the robot must be prepared very evenly. “With classic seeding, the driver can still adjust locally along the way. Not here.” Joost Derks sees a future for the seeding/hoeing robot in a system where chemical weed control is not excluded. “But with much less means than what is now common. Partly hoeing and partly with the Ecorobotix spot sprayer.”
Joost Derks ‘I should have started with a smaller plot closer to home’ Dutch farmer Gert Sterenborg bought a Farmdroid field robot this year and sowed 16 hectares of chicory with it.
It has already provided Sterenborg with several learning moments. After sowing, the hoeing in the row fell short. Due to the relative cold, the plants started very slowly and therefore remained very vulnerable for a long time. On the other hand, the weeds grew abundantly. Moreover, there were quite a few clods this season. If they were touched by the hoe blade, those clods very easily damaged the ungerminated chicory. “A touch of some sand was often already too much.” Therefore, Sterenborg turned off the movable hoes in the row and only hoed between the rows. With the Ecorobotix spot sprayer, he treated the rows. “I’m going to do that again.”
Also an issue to solve is that the fluid for the spot sprayer separates. “It does get pumped around, but that’s apparently not enough. The robot also goes so slowly, it shakes too little. The fluid in the tank settles out.” During the seeding on one of the headlands, sun storms disrupted the GPS, Sterenborg tells. The result was that plants came up in places that were later hoed. He conventionally reseeded those pieces. “I learned a lot. Honestly, I should have started this first year with a smaller plot of chicory closer to home.”
Gert Sterenborg ‘This spring too many malfunctions to do more than 10 hectares’ Dutch farmer Pieter Risseeuw sowed 10 hectares of sugar beets with his Farmdroid robot. They stand clean.
Rain showers meant that the sowing could not continue in one go. As a result, the first beet seedlings were already up when the very last ones were still being sown on the plot. Because of having to stop and restart, the robot was busy for a week and a half sowing the 10 hectares. The hoeing also did not proceed smoothly in one go due to the rain.
During the sowing, the Farmdroid sprayed a mix of Centium and Goltix above the seed. On June 7, the plot stood clean, despite the occasional stagnation in the hoeing. Risseeuw finds that his clay can become too hard for nice hoeing at some point. The hoe then tends to run over the top. “Maybe weights on hoe elements could remedy that problem.”
The farmer finds that he often has to go to the machine to solve a malfunction. “Too often. Not really big things, nothing I can’t solve myself, but you have to keep going there. This is still too many malfunctions for if I were to do more than 10 hectares. Apart from hiccups due to the unusual spring.” For the yield of the robot, the area would have to go up. Compared to conventional beet cultivation, Risseeuw now comes up €500 per hectare short. He then has not counted the extra root yield because he sprays a lot less.
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