OPICO will have its completed range of cultivation and crop establishment equipment on display at Cereals next week.
Latest additions to the comprehensive line-up include Ovlac ploughs and Alpego power-harrows, drills, rotovators and flail-toppers. They will sit alongside the classic HE-VA tillage implements.
Located in northern Spain, Ovlac has been building ploughs for over 85 years. Today it is the country’s largest manufacturer of soil-engaging equipment.
See also: Distilling promotion for SY Tennyson
Mouldboard ploughs remain the firm’s flagship product and Ovlac is seen as a specialist in shallow inversion tillage, with a range of ploughs built specifically for the growing market.
Alongside conventional and reversible ploughs from two to nine furrows – mounted and semi-mounted – the company has a Mini Shallow Plough range to work at depths of between 8cm and 20cm.
This technique, which can reduce share depth to less than 15cm, can halve power requirements enabling smaller tractors to cover greater working widths. It is possible to have a 13-body plough spanning 5m in one pass.
The Mini is robust and has the advantage of working on-land to avoid furrow bottom compaction. A nine-furrow model will be on show at Cereals, alongside a six-furrow version of Ovlac’s XPerience 180 standard reversible plough.
Alpego’s range of cultivation equipment compliments Ovlac’s offerings. Best known for its power-harrows, the Italian company’s range spans working widths from 1-8m.
At the top end the line-up peaks with the 500hp-rated 8m folding DMAX.
A tried-and-tested product, a number of these high-output power-harrows are already out working on the largest farms in the UK, some fitted with Alpego’s piggy-back drills.
Alpego is also known for its innovative approach to design, one example being de-mountable seed drills for tractors with a rear load deck – the hopper and metering unit carried up over the tractor’s rear wheels to maximise traction and optimise weight distribution.
This inventive approach to engineering carries through to Alpego’s rotary cultivators. Rather than employing a conventional chain-drive at one end of the rotor, the Italian company opts instead for a gear-drive to the centre of the shaft.
Not only does this ensure an even distribution of load, it also means its rotovators’ overall width is equivalent to their working width without an over-hanging driveline off to one side.
The OPICO will be at stand 806 during the event, and more information about Cereals can be found here.
