The CROP CARE Show | Premiere Episode 1 | DEERE STUDIO

One, two, three, hit me. Coming up, a VIP factory tour. And we'll be focusing on some essential technologies for accurate spraying, including individual nozzle control, 25 cm nozzle spacing and power spray.

The technology is helping me with lowering the spraying impact as much as possible.

Welcome to Deerstudio. Today we would like to talk with you about spraying technologies and how they can improve applications, reduce chemical usage and help meet increasing environmental legislations. I am very happy that I'm not alone here today today. So please welcome with me Mark.

Hello.

He is one of our crop care experts from the uk. But first let's meet one of our customers from Denmark.

We are farming approximately 330 hectares with different varieties of crops. Winter wheat, spring barley, rapeseed, ryegrass seed, potatoes and a new thing this year is going to be peace. The sprayer is a 962i power spray solution and the boom width is 36 meters. And we just got upgraded to 25cm nozzle spacing and also individual nozzle control. Per year we are Approximately spraying about two and a half thousand hectares and that's comes into 210 hours of driving, included filling and transport. The power spray solution is definitely nice and handy. And also when talking about automatic rinsing circuit, that's also very nice. And you do know that the sprayer will clean itself properly.

Matthias finds power spray very useful. And we also spoke with the Thomas Sheriff, a dealer from the north of the uk and asked them how popular this is with customers.

I would say the power spray solution system with direct rate control would be a hit with our customers. I'd say most of our machines go out with that. We can monitor this on the operations center. We can see it in plain sight by monitoring the application quality, which is a target rate versus the applied rate. We see around 98% accuracy with a power spray system and on a standard conventional piston diaphragm pump sprayer, around 92%, 93%. So the accuracy is there.

So 98% accuracy power spray is such a big improvement over conventional sprayers. Mark, what is power spray and why does it improve the accuracy so much?

That's a very good question, Franzi. So PowerSpray is a unique dual circuit solution system. It has two circuits, each with their own dedicated pump. So first of all we have a filling circuit with a high speed filling pump and it has auto fill fitted as standard equipment. So you simply type into the display on the side of the sprayer the amount you'd like to fill into the tank. You hit Start and it automatically fills to precisely the right amount. Now, Mateus has an R962i sprayer with a 6200L solution tank. We can fill that tank in just a little over five minutes. So we fill very quickly, we get the machine back into the field and you can spray more hectares in the day. Then there's a spraying circuit. The spraying circuit has a high pressure spraying pump, either 750 litres per minute or optionally 1000 litres per minute of output. And we control the application rate by controlling the speed of the spraying pump hydraulically. So it means we have a very, very fast application rate control. We have no pressure regulators, we've got rid of them. So the application rate control is very fast. And because it's very fast, it's extremely accurate, as you see, Franzi, 98% accuracy. So a very accurate sprayer.

Matthias clearly liked the automatic rinsing system.

Yes, and for good reason, because we also have a fully automatic rinsing system as well. There are five different rinsing modes, things like, for example, a boom rinse or something called continuous dilute, or a full system rinse to wash out the whole sprayer. So on the display inside the cab this time you just choose the most appropriate rinsing program, you hit start and the sprayer automatically rinses itself out. So rinsing the sprayer is very quick, it's very easy and it's mistake proof your crops are better protected because you can't get the rinsing program wrong.

Mark, is it right that customers are sometimes a little bit careful about the reliability of new technology?

Well, you can be absolutely sure that they are, Franzi, but you know, when we developed power spray, we reduced the number of electrical valves to the absolute minimum. We got rid of the pressure regulators completely, so they're just not there in the system any longer. And we also switched out the piston diaphragm pumps for solid, simple and reliable centrifugal pumps. So quite simply, we've only got half the number of moving parts on board the machine. And because there are less moving parts, there's less to go wrong. Also, the icing on the cake is that there is no scheduled maintenance to carry out on a power spray sprayer. So unlike a piston diaphragm machine, we don't ask you to do an annual service on the pumps, there's just no need to do it. So you have a machine with power spray that really is more efficient, it's more accurate, but it keeps operating costs at rock bottom. So Power spray is only one of the many advanced features of John Deere sprayers. Now let's go to our factory marketing manager, James Child to find out how these wonderful machines are made.

Thank you, Mark. Hi and welcome. In Europe, we make sprayers in two locations. In Ravenna in Italy, where we build our Mazzotti by John Deere self propelled sprayers. And here in Horst in the Netherlands where we make our trail sprayer portfolio and also our R41 with 40i and 50i solution systems. Join me now to have a closer look. We've been making sprayers here for 75 years. First of all, let's take a look at our boom manufacturing process which where we're cutting, welding and painting our booms. Here you can see our boom assembly area. We take the components that were manufactured earlier, we add the spray lines, the electrical components, the nozzle technology, and the hydraulic components where all the parts come together. Then we optimise those ready for assembling in the main production line of the factory later on. You heard Matthias say He has an R900 with 25cm nozzle spacing and individual nozzle control. Let take a deeper look. Okay, so now we come to our main assembly line. Very similar to a car assembly line. We have other sub assembly areas, other places in the factory where we build, assemble and test subcomponents of those machines. Then we bring them to this main line just in time. Where we start from a bare chassis here at the front of the line. We pull these carts down the end, adding components as we go until we have a fully assembled spring at the far end of our production line here. Let's take a deeper look in the assembly steps. All our production workers are trained to a high level. They are responsible for ensuring that the quality of their product is right before it moves to the next step. So here we come to our final test area. 100% of our machines are audited and tested prior to delivery to our customers. We test every machine after leaving the production line, including running every hydraulic function. After we've done that, we bring the machine into this tent where we check every hydraulic connection to make sure there are no leaks prior to shipping to our customers. The final test is to test the quality of the distribution. This involves using the robot to accurately measure the spray distribution across the full width of the boom. This tests and validates the complete solution system function all the way to the nozzle. We hope you've enjoyed our quick tour of our factory here in Horst. We hope to see you here soon.

So thank you, James, for that interesting overview about our factory in Horst. Mark, there are so many different sprayers made at Horst. Could you give us an overview about the complete range?

Yes, I'm sure that I can. So, first of all, designed to meet the needs of smaller arable and mixed farmers, We've got our M700 series machines. Those sprayers are compact, they're well balanced and they're easy to handle and are fitted with a classic solution system with piston diaphragm pumps and manually operated valves. Next along we have a machine designed for customers wanting a bit more productivity to spray wider areas with wider booms. That's the M900 series machine, but still fitted with that classic piston diaphragm solution system and manual valves for customers that value simplicity. Next along we've got the power spray machines, the R700i power spray machine. First of all, taking that proven structure from the M700 series machine, so the same chassis, same axle, same boom, but now adding power spray on board the machine for more automation, more accuracy and more comfort. And then we've got our flagship trailed sprayer, the R900 series machine. Again taking the proven structure from the M900 but again adding power spray and this time a power spray system on steroids. We've got a 1200 litre per minute filling pump. We've got up to 1000 liters per minute available for spraying. So more capacity, more output to spray the widest areas every day against tight spraying deadlines. Finally, we've got Our Thoroughbred, the R4100 series self propelled sprayer with fantastic features like our extra flex individual wheel suspension that allows those machines to spray at up to 25 kilometres an hour to spray the widest areas and hit the tightest spraying deadlines. So machines that are really productive for the largest farmers and speciality crops growers. So as you can see, Franzi, a wide range of sprayers to meet every type of farming operation.

Yeah, that's great. So as you said, what a big range and what great opportunities for all our customers. So, so what do you see as the key features for our customers who would like to improve their spraying accuracy?

Well, today I would suggest there's two important features that customers should look for. The first one is individual nozzle control. And next is 25cm nozzle spacing.

Here you see the 25cm nozzle spacing. This part is the RNC. That's of the part. Allow me to control each nozzle individually. When we are talking about our seed potatoes, we need to come and spray each seventh day. And that doesn't matter how the weather conditions is. So the upgrading to 25 centimeter nozzle spacing have given us more spray hours because it's not that affected by the wind due to the lower boom height. So that's nice. And when you're going from 50 to 25 centimeter nozzle spacing, you have a lot of nozzles. And when you're sitting inside the cab and in that case you have a blocked nozzle, it's almost impossible for me as an operator to see which exact nozzle it is. But with this special key, I'm able to go outside the cab and control all the nozzles individually.

So two important Individual nozzle control and 25cm nozzle spacing. Let's start with individual nozzle control. Mark, how does it work?

Well, very simply, Franzi, what we do is that we fit a John Deere designed and engineered solenoid valve onto every nozzle body so that in combination with the Isobus control system, we can turn every nozzle on and off individually to make sure that we minimise any overlap or skip down to the absolute minimum.

That's interesting. And what saving does it bring?

Well, really very significant because when we compare that with a section control system, we can reduce the overlap by around about 80%. So it's huge. Potentially. One final important feature we've got with our individual nozzle control is, is that if you want to do spot spraying, you want to use a prescription map to spray down to one nozzle of resolution, then you can do it to really help you to double down on those chemical costs.

So Matthias made a very interesting point in his video about the 25 centimeter nozzle spacing for potatoes. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Yes, absolutely. So with 25 centimeter nozzle spacing, we narrow the nozzle spacing down and to allow us to lower the boom closer to the target or closer to the crop. So it means that we can reduce spray drift and potentially increase coverage. Now, that's particularly important for crops like potatoes, where they have to be sprayed very regularly with fungicides to control diseases like potato blight. So by lowering the boom and reducing the amount of drift, 25 centimeter nozzle spacing could potentially give you more spray days to go out and get the job done. Now, one thing you need to be very careful with when you narrow the spacing down to 25cm is that by doing that and by lowering the boom, you reduce the effective spraying width of the machine. So potentially you can end up with under dosed strips at either end of the boom. So, on a John Deere sprayer, we fit an extra nozzle at the boom tips, controlled individually to fill in the gap and make sure we apply the right amount across whole width of the sprayer. The final thing to say about 25cm nozzle spacing is that in good conditions, when the weather is right, we can potentially put more droplets into the air with a finer spray and get better coverage on the crop. And that potentially allows us to lower our chemical dose rates and again make big cost savings. We've seen how power spray can give you more productivity, more accuracy and reduce your operating costs. We showed you how individual nozzle control can reduce the overlap and reduce your chemical costs. And we spoke about how 25cm nozzle spacing can give you more spray days and more coverage.

So we hope you enjoyed the programme today and please don't forget to like, subscribe, comment and subscribe.

We'll be back on the 27th of April with some insights into the John Deere Operations Centre.

See you then. Bye bye.

Bye.