TopDown into the thick of battle!

AgroCentre has facilitated gathering of intelligence by arranging a demonstration of agricultural equipment at the country's agricultural enterprises. Presently "the gathering of intelligence" is proceeding at Penza enterprises where the TopDown stubble cultivator is undergoing trials. TopDown is a product of Vaderstad, a leading Swedish manufacturer of tilling and seeding equipment.

In July through August, AgroCentre has performed tilling at eight agricultural enterprises of the region that wished to test the TopDown 5 metre cultivator built by Vaderstad.

“The idea of testing the cultivator in action on the fields of enterprises in the oblast was proposed by the Penza farmers themselves at one of the Field Days”, says Sergey Polyakov, head of the Penza branch of AgroCentreZakharovo. “We decided to demonstrate all the advantages of this multirole cultivator by showing it "in the flesh" in various districts of our oblast”.

TopDown ideally tills the soil at cultivation depths of from 3 to 35 cm. Unlike ploughing, after treatment it leaves straw on the field, thereby significantly reducing soil evaporation. TopDown does the crushing of crop residues, the cutting of weed roots, the loosening of soil,  packing, and levelling in a single pass, thus replacing several traditional tilling machines. After its pass, the field is ideally smooth and ready for seeding. TopDown is very economical and efficient, since it does not turn over the soil layer. Moreover, the optimum speed of plough-aided cultivation is not more than 5-7 km/h, whereas TopDown operates at a higher speed of 10-12 km/h.

The cultivator was tested on various fields of agricultural enterprises in the Penza oblast, including weed-covered fields that had not been treated for over three years. One of the hardest "battles" awaited the Swedish machine on 100 hectares of the Botanik farm (Mokshansky district). 

“We set a serious task for TopDown”, says Nikolai Bazhenov, head of the agricultural company. “The field was badly weeded and not treated for four years. However, the cultivator did the job excellently. It crushed the weeds, levelled the field surface, and ‘crumbled’ big soil lumps. Of course, to attain ideal conditions in the field we should go over it with TopDown once more, but considering that the field sported weeds up to your waist, just one pass gave excellent results”.