Amazing CTF potato harvester | John Deere & AVR on 6 tracks | Farm of the Future

You'll have probably heard of CTF or Controlled Traffic Farming. This means that all 'traffic' in the field are carried out from the same set of tracks. Some wheel tracks are left permanent in the field, some are there only for 1 season. In this case they are permanent. The Dutch Wageningen University & Research (WUR) is testing CTF in combination with different crops on their Farm of the Future in Lelystad. Not only are the crops grown on 3m wide beds, there is also intercropping between different cultures. These potatoes (2 varieties early and late) are joined by onions, grass/clover, spring barley and field beans.

Harvesting root crops in a CTF system is more difficult compared to cereals or fodder. There is a large crop volume to handle, quality has to be looked after and there is virtually no machinery available that can readily be bought. This is why WUR had their owned specialist and unique machines modified. Most field work on the Farm of the Future is carried out using a 2021 model John Deere 6130R set to a track width of 3.15m. It has been fitted with Pink Innovation row crop tracks so it can handle all conditions without making deep ruts. The modification was carried out by Dutch conversion specialist Geertsema Mechanisatie.

The potato harvester is an AVR Spirit 5200. This 2 row bunker harvester is also using a set of Pink Innovation tracks. Hydraulically driven in this case. The rear axle was made by Hegro Agriservice and the modifications carried out by AVR dealership Groenoord. They also fitted a Dahlmann-type cleaning system to handle this clay soils.

The 6 tonne bunker capacity is enough for the machine to lift 4 rows in 2 passes. The beds are 250m long and unloading is done on the headland where there is a concrete road. This means that trailers never have to enter the field. The harvester can also be modified to lift the onions. For the combinable crops a modified combine harvester is used. Needless to say all jobs on this field are carried out using centimetre accurate RTK-GPS.

If you would like to know more about CTF: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_traffic_farming. Are you interested in the Farm of the Future and the research that is ongoing have a look here: https://farmofthefuture.nl/.

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