Kverneland Pudama - sowing with spot fertilization and results of demo field in Bulgaria

During the largest agricultural exhibition Agritechnics 2023, Kverneland presented results of its one-year project — demo sowing in several countries with the Pudama system.

Several European countries were involved in the project, including Bulgaria.

The Pudama system is a solution that reduces the amount of fertilizer during sowing by placing it only around the seed and not along the entire length. And all this without affecting the final result of mining. Based on this point placement, a minimum of 25% fertilizer savings during sowing is achieved.

To prove that the system is also applicable in the conditions in Bulgaria, in 2023 the NIK team conducted a project that includes several stages — from sowing with different fertilization rates, monitoring the development of plants and tracking the obtained yield.

Here are the results:

• Sowing

• Monitoring

• Harvest and results

‍

Sowing with the Pudama system

The field where the demo sowing took place is in North-Eastern Bulgaria. As in order to obtain a sufficiently good and relevant sample, sowing of both corn and sunflowers was carried out.Due to climatic changes and conditions, sowing took place in early May.Sowing was carried out with a spring planter Kverneland TFprofi with the high-speed section - SX.

Plant Development Tracking

During the entire period of plant development, our team visited the demo fields in order to track their development.It is important to note that during their growth phase, an extremely dry period occurred due to adverse climatic conditions. The measured rainfall for the period is well below the quantities needed for proper development. This, in turn, also affects the final yield.Plants are in the initial phase of developmentDuring the initial observation phase, young plants were taken from each pass of the planting scheme.From the photo and the comparison made, it is clear that there is no difference in the development of both the leaves and the root system. The comparison is of plants versus the different amount of fertilizer applied:

• with the standard drawdown of 0%, 50%, 75% and 100%
• the imported fertilizer with Pudama: 50% 75% and 100%

Harvest and results

In view of the different sowing dates of the two fields/ that of sunflower and that of maize/, respectively, the harvest took place with a certain period of difference, but the summary of the data showed the following:Sunflower

• With 11 kg of fertilizer tape laying, we reported a yield of 725 kg
• While using Pudama and fertilizer rate of 7.5 kg we realized a result of 736 kg

Maize

• They clearly show that when using 15 kg norm conventional fertilization - we got a yield of 1246 kg
• While at 25% less fertilizer, namely 11 kg of fertilizer with Pudama technology. We received 1291 kg

After the experiment carried out on the Bulgarian fields, it was proved that with the Pudama system a minimum of 25% fertilizer can be saved during sowing.

More about the project you can see in the video: