StripTill – XTill engineered by Vogelsang

AMAZONE and Vogelsang cooperate in the area of strip cultivation technology

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Within its framework of technical pre-development and experimentation, AMAZONE has been looking into soil tillage in strips under European conditions. The StripTill system has, as a logical further development of existing European mulch sowing systems, a very big potential.

Definition

The solutions actually offered in the market in relation to StripTill technology are very comprehensive and different technical approaches for this topic are readily available – it remains questionable as to what extent the different solutions correspond to the actual StripTill ideology, and also which of them will establish themselves in the market!

For AMAZONE the split StripTill system clearly has the bigger potential. Here deep loosening replaces the deep primary soil tillage and therefore has to be regarded for most locations as being separated from the sowing operation. With this StripTill approach, following the American model, at least 50% of the soil is not worked. On row widths of 45 to 80 cm, for us the most important crops are maize, sunflowers, soya, root crops and rape.

With the integrated StripTill system loosening and sowing are carried out in one operational pass. This type of technology requires a fairly high pulling power capacity and is not suited to every location. For row widths of less than 45 cm, AMAZONE will deal with this topic within the framework of the further development of the Cirrus trailed sowing combination.

Markets

With Vogelsang, AMAZONE has found a cooperation partner who has already successfully established his StripTill technology in the market, but who, however, only operates in the sector of liquid manure application. To expand the range of operation, AMAZONE will in future use the XTill technology from Vogelsang but with mineral fertiliser application. This keeps the areas of competence for both companies clearly distinguishable! For AMAZONE, the most important markets are, above all, the large arable farming regions of Middle and Eastern Europe where there is little liquid manure in use.

Technology

During the last few years, the XTill implement from Vogelsang has achieved a good name as a very professional implement with excellent work rates, and although currently available just in a 75 cm row width, solutions for row widths from 45 cm are being developed. With its parallel suspension and depth guidance wheel, the XTill implement follows the ground contours very effectively. The arrangement of the cultivator is in accordance with the usual and very effective American model. The machine creates a seedbed free from organic matter and so meets all the usual requirements: opening up the soil, furrow clearing, loosening, applying fertiliser, ridging up and then reconsolidating.

In the next year, the AMAZONE XTill, in conjunction with the VarioTrail 3000, will be implemented in some important target regions. These machines will be closely monitored in view of the fact that we are establishing a new system.