The largest farm in Romania equips 40 tractors with preparation for autonomous machines

The farm Agricost S.A., which processes 570 000 acreson the island of Insula Mare to Braila, Romania decided to equip 40 new tractorsthat will arrive by the end of 2019 with a displayTrimble GFX-750with automatic control and RTK accuracy 2 cm. Currently, 50 machines on the farm have been using Trimble equipment with 2 cm accuracy for over 10 years, but what is new is that by choosing the GFX-750 platform, the company's management is preparing to upgrade the machines in the near future with Trimble autonomous control equipment. The equipment supplier is the official distributor of Trimble in Romania, namely the Romanian representative office of NIK ELECTRONICS. ”Agricost is the second largest farm in Europeand as such, all manufacturers and equipment suppliers want to work with them. The fact that after extensive technical and financial market research, they chose us as a reliable supplier gives us the confirmation that NICKis not only an integrator of GPS equipment, but a company that develops and offers complete solutions for precision agriculture — from hardware and specialized technical support to software platforms and services. “said Kaloyan Kumanov, Manager of the NIK Representation in Romania.

In addition to the equipment that will be supplied by the local representative office of NIC in Romania, Agricost has been using the GeoScan satellite monitoring platform for a year now.

“I don't think we can work like this anymore, and to think that looking at crops on the move or from the car will be enough to know what's going on in the field. Vantidge(Representation of NIK Electronics in Romania) was able to show us through a satellite-based innovative platform every square meter of all 57 000 hectaresthat we process so that we know what is happening there at all times. Thus, we can intervene in a timely manner or encourage those who have the obligation to solve a possible problem to intervene. When the corn is over 1.5 meters, who knows what's there? Or in the sunflower? Unless you notice something on the end lines. This satellite system, which determines the vegetation index based on color and tells you what happens on every hectare, every square meter, is a miracle to me. For us who cultivate such large areas, the program is of great help. But I think that this program would also be of great help to farmers who cultivate smaller areas, precisely for the reasons I have listed. We are grateful to Vantidge for the GeoScan system, which for us is very useful.” This was shared by the manager of Agricost, Lucian Buzdougan, during the conference on Precision Agriculture, held in Bucharest in February 2019. After a year of working with the platform, Agricost decided to sign a 3-year contract with NIK for the use of GeoScan.In addition to monitoring the development of crops, thanks to 30 weather stations supplied by the NIK, Agricost agronomists will also monitor important climatic indicators such as temperature, precipitation, wind speed, soil moisture and temperature as well as the risk of diseases.

“We want GeoScan to be the platform in which we integrate the data that comes from the different machines — planters, sprayers and harvesters as well as sensors from the field,” said Mr. Buzdugan.