Amazone’s pre-Agritechnica event concluded with news about its fertiliser spreader range, completing a long journey in the company’s history.
A neat feature added to the MySpreader app from Amazone is EasyMatch, which the company states will ease achieving the right spread settings, even when the exact fertiliser is not known. The reason for the complexity, the company notes is the number of trade names that each fertiliser is sold under and the variability of products on the market, leading to a number of different databases available.
Using EasyMatch, users can take a picture of the product being spread. Using its own database and AI, the system will analyse 250 parameters, including granule size, shape and structure of the fertiliser and provide spreading recommendations. It’s offered free of charge by the company and can be used even when phone signal is not available.
Dr Justis Dreyer, joint chairman of the board and owner of Amazone, came out to introduce the final product. He explained to the audience that his father, Dr Heinz Dreyer, had started collecting fertiliser spread data in 1983, establishing a spreading hall at Amazone to continue this work. He was responsible for many of the technologies that Amazone has integrated into its fertiliser spreaders, but retired, and sadly passed away in 2023, with one aim unfulfilled: complete self-adjustment of the spreader.
The company now believes it has reached this goal with the ZA-TS 01 AutoSpread. Available with capacities of 4,000 litres or 5,000 litres, with spread widths up to 54m, it integrates the existing ArgusTwin system to measure the direction of throw and adds AutoSpread sensors at the rear to measure the throwing distance – reportedly a first outside of laboratory tests.
According to Amazone it turns the machine into a mobile spreading hall, with a digital twin of Amazone’s own hall integrated into the technology to continuously validate results from the spread pattern. This enables issues with the spread pattern to be detected quickly.
It works in conjunction with HeadlandControl and WindControl to adjust the spread pattern based on external factors and uses the company’s CurveControl system to maintain applications even when turning. A new border spreading system has also been developed, allowing operators to simply enter the desired distance to the field boundary. The spreader then automatically monitors and adjusts settings to ensure that the operation remains legally compliant.
