Tempo does the work of three!

The Tempo High-Speed Planter from Vaderstad has fulfilled the designers’ promises of both the unprecedented for row-crop planters speed of 12-17 km/h and perfect precision of seed placement. The number of these planters operating in Russian fields is increasing, and now the manufacturer offers wider-cut models, specifically for Russian scale.

The brilliant PowerShoot solution of the Tempo drilling unit allows to plant faster without compromising the accuracy. The seed is ‘shot’ into the soil precisely at a set depth by pressurised air as compared to seed falling down to the soil through a pipe on most precision seed drills. Therefore, the vibration arising with the speed increase does not affect the quality and consistency of seed placement. Thus, traditional for sugar beets seeding rate of 5-8 km/h is no longer an issue.

The new mounted Tempo R is the second generation of these planters. Unlike its ancestor, the trailed Tempo F, the Tempo R lineup includes a 12-row model, and previously, 8-row models were the biggest in the lineup.

According to Vaderstad specialists, this model was inspired by requests of big-scale farming enterprises, in particular, Russian ones.

‘The Tempo has been operating in our country for 5 years already’, shares Maksim Bolkhovskikh, Sales Department Manager of AgroCentreLiski. ‘We get positive feedback not only on the seeding quality and capacity but also on the work quality. The implement never fails even on challenging and too waterlogged soils.’

The Tempo R is developed for maize and sunflower drilling, but it can also be applied for soybeans, rapeseeds and sugar beets.

This spring, AgroCentreLiski has delivered a Tempo R12 to Trio (Lipetsk oblast). The first seeding campaign started with planting sugar beets with the use of technologies unconventional for Russia.

Aleksandr Retinsky, Subdivision Manager of Agrofirma Trio LLC:

‘We plant sugar beets in accordance with American practices which require an inter-row spacing of 56 cm. Therefore, the factory modified the implement: moved the sections apart. We are very pleased with the Tempo R12. The planter has already planted 1,000 ha of sugar beets at a speed of 14-15 km/h – it does the work of three, covering 140 ha a day, which is almost as much as a 36-row planter can do. The technology used requires early planting and more accurate placement of seeds. We have already employed high-speed technology with vacuum planters, but then we were fully aware that the seeding precision would be compromised. Judging by even germination, with Tempo, we won’t face such problem any longer. Currently, the machine is sowing maize, and later we’re going to use it to plant soybeans as well. It is equally important that it performs very well on the waterlogged soil, since it rains a lot in spring. That is exactly how we sowed: it was raining in the field while the Tempo was planting in the rain!’