German style of agriculture

Christian Kowalczyk is deputy director for production and chief agronomist of the R L Bryansk LLC, which was established in 2008. This spring the fleet of the company's farming equipment has been replenished with an AEROSTAR 1200 Einbock machine. Christian shared his impressions of the row crop harrow as used in the first season and spoke about the farm.

The R L Bryansk farming enterprise is situated in the Sevsky district, Bryansk oblast. What is remarkable is that it was created by Germans. The project investor was the UFG financial group headed by Ekkart Homan, who assumed the office of director general. Christian Kowalczyk was commissioned to supervise production, growth technologies and harvesting. Christian hails from the Bavarian town of Coburg. He arrived in Russia in 2005 and worked for several years as a crop consultant on one of the Voronezh oblast farms.  

At present, the German agricultural enterprise has 24,000 hectares of land, 20,000 of which are in tillage while the remaining 4,000 hectares lie fallow or are re-cultivated.  The main crops being grown are winter wheat, spring barley, rape and peas. Lupine and sunflower complement the crop rotation.  

Much attention at R L Bryansk is given to technical re-equipment. Cost-friendly technologies, such as the minimal tillage method and no-plough tilling technique, are widely used here, though previously they had not been practiced in the district. The company managers choose each new type of equipment very responsibly.   

“The amount of equipment is not an end in itself”, says Christian Kowalczyk. “There must be just enough of it for handling our 20,000 hectares. In a season, one combine harvester can harvest 1,700 hectares. Multiplying this by the total area we obtained what we need, i.e. 12 tractors and 12 combines. If we buy a further 10,000 hectares, we'll add another 6 machines. That way we won't have anything in excess!"

 The farm acquired an AEROSTAR 1200 weeder from the Bryansk branch of AgroCentreLiski LLC with which it has cooperated for several years. The chain harrow is chiefly used for treating the winter wheat in order to stimulate tillering and crush the hard soil crust. This prevents evaporation of precious moisture from the upper soil layer.

“We didn't use the weeder for long on the sown fields of barley because of the weather”, says Christian Kowalczyk. “However, the mechanical handling of the sown mustard and crucials produced a fine effect. Using this tool, in ten days we treated around 1,500 hectares, which means a daily output 150 ha. Three 12m disc harrows (capacity of up to 15,000 ha/yr) perform the soil surface treatment. For deep treatment, we use two Top Down 7m cultivators from Vaderstad. Their capacity runs to 8,000 ha/yr.

According to Christian, the soil surface treatment is started, if possible, after harvesting in order to stimulate the sprouting of windfalls and to retain soil moisture. The cultivation is done at a depth of 15 to 20 cm. Normally the fields assigned to spring seeding undergo the appropriate treatment.

One of the farm's problems is scarce rainfall, which does not exceed 600 mm per year across the oblast. Therefore, in order to control water content in the soil, it was decided to plant seeds in mulch.

Now the company is building a modern grain processing complex (not even Germany has anything similar). This will be able to simultaneously process 400 tonnes of products. Two sorters will sort the grain into 1st and 2nd class, discharging up to tonnes per hour. The dryers, running on gas, can pre-treat up to 60 tonnes of grain, depending on its moisture content. In addition to filling its own needs, the farm will also take in outsider’s grain.

Valery Gudakov, head of the Sevsky district administration, Bryansk oblast, believes that the German management convincingly proves its efficiency every day. “With the arrival of the German colleagues, our land came back to life. And so did people on it. The farmer is pleased to see not just well-attended fields, but also the high culture of farming”.