The farming research collaboration between the NDI Group and Danish Agricultural Research company SEGES continues with a new scientific experiment. The experience looks to the comparable efficiency of two different wheel solutions used during the sowing campaign.
Major Project Relating to Efficiency of VF Tyres
Last year, the NDI Group initiated a farming research collaboration with SEGES running an experiment to measure the benefits of driving with a complete VF tyre setup on a manure spreader and tractor while fertilizing a cornfield. As a result of the successful collaboration and tyre test that showed how VF-tyres could ensure a cost increase per hectare, the two companies started their new experiment in April 2022.
Jakob Nannberg Scheel, Sales Manager for the agricultural division of the NDI Group, explained in detail the process: “We have taken the next steps in our farming research collaboration with SEGES and started a new experiment. This time, we are investigating how significant an effect the combination of VF-tyres and a special wheel solution used during the sowing seasons has on the yield and quality of corn. Now we are comparing a solution with double wheels in which wide tyres are driving on top of four rows being sown with an alternative solution with narrow wheels and VF-tyres from Alliance. Here, the wheels drive between the rows, and the VF-tyres with decreased pressure.”
The experiment is taking place at the Agerbæk Machinery Station. According to Nannberg Scheel, an opportunity to gain new, scientifically based knowledge about the effect different wheel solutions have on the yield and quality of corn, so the NDI Group can provide its customers with even better guidance:
He added, “It is all about ensuring that we can offer the best possible guidance to our customers in the agricultural industry. Here SEGES is a perfect, independent collaboration partner as a bridge-builder between research and farming in practice, as they are experts in farming research. They ensure that the tyre experiment will follow scientific standards. It gives us the scientific foundation of our customer consultations.”
For SEGES’ field technology consultant Henning Sjørslev Lyngvig, the experiment follows a method similar to the one used in previous experiments both companies have undertaken.
“The method is the same as last time. We are driving with two different wheel setups in four rows each while sowing the corn. During the year, we will follow up and assess the growth and quality of the crops. After the harvest in the autumn, we will analyse the data and compare the corn crops. Then we will conclude how significant an effect the wheel solution has on the yield and quality of the crops,” he explains.
Concluding, he says, “An experiment in Germany has already shown that using a wheel solution that allows the tyre to drive between the rows increases the yield – but this is the first time we have conducted such an experiment in Denmark. We look very much forward to seeing the results and how the results can give us new, valuable insights and implementable knowledge to the farmers.”
