AMAZONE trials centre on the Wambergen Estate: First harvest in the Controlled Row Farming project

Harvesting the winter barley marks the end of the first year of cultivation in the Controlled Row Farming (CRF) project. The entire plot is threshed and weighed in a high-end fertiliser spreader in the practice-oriented strip trial. The ZG-TS 7501 is a discarded prototype which has been given special discharge funnels to transfer the crop to the trailers. This makes the trial harvesting much more effective and provides immediate results.

The results show that the double row of cereals at 50 cm with a 50 % lower seed rate achieves the same yields as conventional surface sowing. Furthermore, Egyptian clover, a well-developed companion crop, was undersown in the last hoeing pass. This generated additional biomass immediately after the harvest.

The CRF cultivation concept with the consistent row orientation of every rotation receives very positive feedback in discussions with practitioners and advisors. This autumn, the DLG launched a 3-year trial project based on the key principles of Controlled Row Farming (www.controlled-row-farming.de) with a particular focus on promoting regional beneficial plants.

The project “ReNuWi - Row-based cultivation with reduced chemical plant protection and promotion of beneficial insects and wild herbs in the field" is funded by the Federal Environmental Foundation and carried out together with the partners Anhalt University of Applied Sciences and our subsidiary Schmotzer Hacktechnik at the International Crop Production Centre in Bernburg. We expect scientifically-founded results and to gain additional experiences in a different climate region in the coming years in randomised large-plot trials.