Väderstad has unveiled its new Proceed seed drill that the company says represents a new seeding category where one machine can increase the yield potential of a full range of crops from wheat, barley, oilseed rape and sugar beet to peas, maize, sunflower and many more.
“At Väderstad, we build machines that keep our customers at the forefront of modern farming,” the senior vice president for sales and marketing, Mattias Hovnert, said. “We develop new methods and from time to time we set completely new standards. Proceed is one of those leaps that doesn’t happen often in the farm machinery industry, but when it does, it changes things.”
The Väderstad Proceed can place the smallest of seeds at the perfect depth with millimetre precision, enabling significant improvements in areas like yield levels, need for tillage, chemical treatment and use of fertilisers. Field trials also show that the Proceed drill can cut the wheat seed rate by half, while maintaining the yield. Importantly the crops are stronger and very even in all growth stages of the crop year.
“Proceed takes a huge leap from current seeding technology. It’s outstanding in depth precision, in-row precision, end-of-row precision, as well as seedbed optimisation. The result is quick, even emergence and vital crop population where each plant is provided conditions needed to reach full potential.
A few months after seeding, trials in winter wheat at a seed rate of 150 seeds/square metre showed an increase of 102 per cent in plant biomass, 72 per cent in root biomass and 62 per cent more shots per plant, compared to a current seed drill.
When seeding cereals, Proceed has a row spacing of either 225mm or 250mm. By an easy configuration and a quick change of seed discs the machine can switch to 450mm or 500mm for crops such as sugar beet or oilseed rape, and then switch again to plant crops such as maize, sunflower or cotton at 750mm row spacing. All crops will be established with outstanding precision, maximising the yield potential for each seed.
The heart of Proceed is its high-precision row units. Prior to placement, individual preseeding wheels consolidates the field to ensure same conditions for each seed. The pre-seeding wheels are individually mounted, using hydraulic down-force to ensure high performance.
When the seeds reach the row units from the central hopper, an adapted version of Väderstad’s PowerShoot singulation system takes full control of each single seed all the way down to the soil. Leaving the short seed tube, each seed is received by a stop wheel. This ensures optimal seed-to-soil contact at selected depth all across the working width.
To provide the driver with full control, each row unit is electrically driven and controlled via the iPad-based control system Väderstad E-Control. Functions include row-by-row shut-off and variable rate, dynamic tramlining, individual calibration, as well as real-time precision monitoring and control. All of which are true technical innovations in the cereal seeding sector
During 2022, Väderstad are pushing the limits further with new full-scale field trials, and cooperation with researchers, seed companies and progressive farmers all over the world.
