Fendt South Africa recently extended its local product offering with the latest generation of the Fendt 200 VFPS Vario specialist tractor series, a mid-horsepower range available in vineyard, fruit, orchard and standard configurations.
The series also comes with the intuitive FendtONE operating concept, which makes it the first specialist tractor with a fully integrated terminal.
Figures from Fruit South Africa indicate that more than 4,7 million tons of fruit are produced in South Africa each year, of which 59% are exported, 28% used for processing and 12% sold locally.
According to Ryan Clark, product marketing manager for lower- horsepower tractors for Fendt in Africa, machinery companies that service the South African market needed to provide the country’s export fruit farmers with the equipment they required to compete with their international counterparts.
“The technological solutions and innovations in these modern specialist tractors provide […] the very best in productivity, efficiency and results-driven farming for the best job in the world,” Clark said in a statement.
The Fendt 200 VFPS Vario series of specialist tractors includes five models: the Fendt 207 Vario, Fendt 208 Vario, Fendt 209 Vario, Fendt 210 Vario, and Fendt 211 Vario, with outer widths ranging from 1,07m to 1,68m. The maximum power range is between 58kW and 91kW. All models are available in Power, Profi and Profi+ versions.
Super-specialisation
“The new Fendt 200 VFPS Vario works more quietly and saves fuel,” says Frans Cronjé, regional sales manager for Fendt at AGCO South Africa. “Compared with the previous model, it boasts a total of 33 innovations, with 21 of these packed into the standard Power configuration.
“Every farm is different, so there are the three Power, Profi and Profi+ configurations, combined with the flexibility of over 160 options, as well as 70 [types of] tyres and tracks to tailor the tractor perfectly to specific requirements, and that makes this a very special tractor for the specialist farmer.”
The Fendt 200 VFPS Vario Profi+ offers farmers the complete range of smart farming solutions adopted from the Fendt 700 Vario.
With Fendt Task Manager, a farm manager can create job orders in the office or on the move and send them straight to the machine. Using Fendt Task Manager together with Fendt Guide and the RTK correction signal, the Fendt 200 VFP Vario can drive down rows with centimetre-accuracy and carry out tasks even more efficiently.
Dead on track
With Fendt Guide, the machine operates steadily and accurately, staying on track without active steering inputs, even in poor visibility, at night or with large working widths.
“When cover spraying, you can avoid going over the same spot twice,” says Cronjé. “Once the work is done, Fendt Task Doc can automatically send the job order to the office. This makes it easier to document and measure the work carried out during the day or the entire season, and even by specific operators.”
Smart assist is a real benefit for repeat processes, especially headlands.
The Fendt TI headland management system saves up to 1 920 daily hand movements in 160 turns. Both manually at a standstill and while driving, the tractor can record all the functions as a sequence and save them in the terminal.
All it takes is a touch of a button to activate automated sequences when entering and coming out of the headland.
Work or operator profiles can be stored easily, ensuring perfectly adjusted equipment and controls, even with different drivers operating the same machine.