Earlier this year we set out to compare GPS-modulated section control on four spreaders. Amazone’s entry met problems, so accuracy results were published for only three machines. We promised the ZA-TS a re-run — and here it is
S pring 2016 seems a long way off now. Back then we took four 27m fertiliser spreaders, each with GPS section control, and looked (among other things) at how well they controlled product application rate on straight and running field headlands (profi 04/16). Test contestants from the four participating spreader suppliers were the KRM M3W + Section Control Dynamic; the Kuhn Axis-H EMC+W with GPS-Control; Kverneland’s Exacta TL with GEOspread; and the Amazone ZA-TS Hydro 3200 Profis with CCI.Command SC.
The last of these had its troubles during testing. Its application rates weren’t consistent, which Amazone first concluded was because of permanent activation of the offside border spread control. This could have been down to the hardware, to software or (of course) to driver error, but neither profi nor Amazone could replicate the machine’s odd behaviour after the test.
Either way the maker says that no users have reported similar results. Since then more fieldwork has been done, this time by Masters degree student Johannes Schulze Walgern, together with top agrar magazine, as part of his thesis. He used a similar calibration tray set-up and the same model of spreader, but with three different spec levels of Amazone’s SectionControl. The test methods differed slightly: border spread rate was not measured, and where originally the long work met the headland at 20°, second time around the angle was steeper at 30°. The first tests used prilled P & K without nitrogen, the second test went with prilled ammonium nitrate.
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