Francois and Sarel Haasbroek recently hosted a farmers’ day at Bothaville in the Free State, where the latest machinery from Horsch was demonstrated by the German company’s SA agent, Terratill. The star of the show was undoubtedly the Horsch Maestro precision planter. It is suitable for all types of single grain seed, while the ‘seed on demand’ system means it’s easy to fill the huge central hopper. There’s always seed available at the individual metering devices, each driven electrically with very few moving parts.
There are no chains, sprockets or gearboxes required to convey the fertiliser or seed to the coulters. Pressure on the coulters can be hydraulically adjusted up to 300kg from the tractor seat. Fertiliser is placed 50mm to the side and 50mm below the seed, and this distance always remains constant. At the demonstration, the 24-row model was pulled by a Challenger MT865c tractor and proved itself capable of precise placement at speeds higher than 15km/h.
The Maestro range currently available in SA also includes 8-row and 12-row models, both with 750mm spacing. Other row spacings are available on request. The seed bin capacity is 2m3 and the fertiliser bin 7m3. Track width can be adjusted to suit row width and the unit folds down to a transport width of 3m in less than a minute. More than 420 farmers turned up on the day to see the Maestro and other machinery at work and listen to guest speaker, Horsch managing director Michael Horsch.
The Horsch Terrano
The Horsch Terrano 4 FX is a universal cultivator suitable for almost all conditions. This particular model has 13 tines and a working width of 4m. It is one of a range of Terrano models, both mounted and trailed, with working widths ranging from 3m to 12m. Options include packer rollers and rear harrows.
A world record
Regular readers of Farmer’s Weekly will recall that last year a Horsch Maestro 24,75 SW planter set a new world record, when an area of 448,29ha of maize was precision planted and simultaneously fertilised inside 24 hours. The average planting speed was 14,7km/h at a precision rate of 94%.