Garford Farm Machinery Ltd, the Deeping based farm machinery manufacturer, enjoyed a good couple of days at the recent LAMMA2014 show, walking away with 2 major awards for their Robocrop Spot Sprayer;
Garford are delighted to come away from LAMMA 2014 with another double award through the LAMMA 2014 awards for Innovation competition.
The Robocrop Spot Sprayer was awarded both the Maurice High Trophy for Best New Product or Innovation at Lamma 14 and the IAgrI Ivel Award for the Best New Product or Innovation – Environmental. The awards come 5 years after winning the same awards for the Robocrop InRow Weeder. Philip Garford, Managing Director, commented “being a LAMMA exhibitor since almost the start of the show , LAMMA Awards are always that bit more special to us at Garfords and we are thrilled to receive both awards”.
The Spot Sprayer is the latest in the Garford Robocrop Family utilising the Robocrop imaging system which in the case of the spot sprayer firstly defines the position of the crop and then looks for clumps of weeds growing between or amongst the row which it then targets with a special jet of weedkiller in order to kill the weed but avoid contact with the crop. In this way problem weeds can be controlled with extremely low rates compared to overall spraying, often only 1 or 2% of the overall rate.
The Robocrop Spot Sprayer has been in development over the last few years by Garfords technology partners, Tillett Hague Technology, prompted by the impending withdrawal of key herbicides particularly those used for volunteer potato control in onion and carrot crops.
The technique could be employed in other crops where a regular crop row structure can be identified and clumps of problem weeds exist.
As well as development of the image analysis software the project also involved the design and development of a special fluidic nozzle, in conjunction with Hypro EU Ltd, to provide an accurately directed jet of spray composed of a very narrow range droplet size in order to avoid splash off or drift.
The Spot Sprayer is currently available in sizes up to 6mtr working width and working speeds of 7kph are normal.
