Ahead of the times

The Voronezh Field Day, one of the biggest agricultural trade shows in the Central Black Earth Region, was held near the village of Makarye in Novousmansky district. In the words of Voronezh Oblast Governor Aleksey Gordeyev, everything that allows farmers to develop in sustainable fashion and minimise risks was on the display there.

Those companies who invest in innovations are always “tall in the saddle” or, to put it more precisely, their “iron horses” are in demand. Take, for example, the all purpose row crop Massey Ferguson tractors (200 to 250 hp). These machines are mainly used in sowing row crops – beetroots, maize and sunflower. A modern fuel system makes it possible to increase the tractor power while saving fuel. Every two years, they renew the cab and improve the operator’s working conditions.

At the trade show AgroCentre presented a brand new model self-propelled sprayer, the Challenger RoGator 700 for small- and medium-sized farms. The machine has a boom width of 24 to 30 m – almost the same as a big, full-fledged machine. Its technical capabilities (spraying quality, treatment speed) are also comparable with bigger counterparts. At the same time, the sprayer’s price is rather affordable if compared to “the giants”. This model attracted a lot of attention on the market and is successfully operating on several farms.

AgroCentreLiski delegated two units to the demonstration field of the trade show: the self-propelled Challenger windrower with grass cutter and the powerful MF8690 tractor with Challenger disc harrow. The heavy disc harrow with operating width of 9 m and disc diameter of 610 mm embeds post-harvest residues perfectly and can manage even with virgin soil. Straight after the demonstration, the self-propelled windrower featuring a roll grass cutter with coverage of 5.5 m went for a test drive to a farm in the Voronezh oblast.

Nikolay Ivanovich Solopov, President of Tambovagropromkhimia, considers himself the happiest of men. And he has all reasons for that. The major one is a successful enterprise which steadily follows the principle set down in 2001 – a harvest less than 5 t/ha is a failure. During all these years, the farm has successfully coped with this task. In private life, he also has reasons to be proud – both sons, Sergey and Valery, follow in his steps and manage separate divisions of the holding. And all Solopovs attended the Field Day.

“I’m completely happy,” Nikolay Ivanovich says. “My business has passed into my son’s reliable hands. As for reliable partners, that’s AgroCentreLiski. In recent years we’ve bought three Challenger track tractors, Series 8 and 9 wheeled tractors, Rapid and Monopill drills. The Company is very suitable: it feels the market, understands farmers’ needs and problems and always finds solutions to benefit the customers and themselves. Now we’re going to buy the RoGator 1300 sprayer and Series 8 tractors.”