One of the more unusual exhibits at Agritechnica 2011 was this prototype Ohard tool carrier for orchards and vineyards from Swiss manufacturer Hinterland International.
Described as a stilt tractor, the unit looks like a cabbed motorbike with stabilisers, but a great deal of thought has gone into the design.
“If you think about conventional fruit and vineyard tractors they have to be narrow to drive down the rows, but this also means that the tractor wheels are very close to the trees or vines and compact the soil around the roots, which can cut production by as much as 10 per cent a year,” Kilian Rölli of FobroKress told What’s new in Farming. “The stilt tractor’s wheels drive down the centre of the rows so that compaction is avoided.”
The outer wheels on the tractor can be fully retracted to give the machine a width of 2.6m for road travel – where speeds of up to 30km/hr are possible – while they can be expanded up to 5.0m wide to suit the spacing between the vines or trees.
Powered by a Deutz engine, the stilt tractor can be fitted with a range of specialist fruit and vineyard tools. These include a 3,000-litre sprayer that effectively sprays four rows at a time.
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The Ohard stilt tractor can tilt by up to 10 per cent to operate effectively on sloping ground. |
Another feature of the machine is that it can ‘lean’ at up to 10 per cent so that it can be used on inclines where the land may slope, but the vines or trees still grow straight up.
“This machine brings new levels of productivity to vineyards and fruit farms,” Mr Rölli added. “If you take a typical 50ha vineyard one Ohard stilt tractor can replace four conventional compact tractors.”
Shown as a prototype at Agritechnica, the first pre-series stilt tractors will go to work in the middle of 2012.
For more information contact: www.fobro.com.
