Digital Agricultural Technology – Soil & Seeds
Convenience and efficiency for soil and seed
PÖTTINGER offers you a comprehensive range of intelligent solutions for tillage and drilling that make your everyday work easier and more efficient.
SEED COMPLETE
Your complete package for optimised agriculture
With SEED COMPLETE, PÖTTINGER offers a tool for your success by optimising the management of your farming operations. SEED COMPLETE is a package of intelligent smart farming solutions including a communication unit offered for our VITASEM, AEROSEM and TERRASEM seed drills.
SECTION CONTROL and VARIABLE RATE CONTROL are available as standard equipment.
Your advantages with SEED COMPLETE:
Stress free operation for the driver with the seed drill switching on and off automatically.
Increases efficiency and improves the cost effectiveness of the farm: Saves resources
Avoids overlaps in wedge-shaped fields when sowing and fertilising.
Takes into account the differences in soil quality and yield potential within a field during drilling.
SECTION CONTROL
SECTION CONTROL refers to the automatic switching of whole or partial working widths of the implement. SECTION CONTROL is a convenient, efficient and resource-saving solution for headlands and for awkwardly shaped fields.
SECTION CONTROL makes sure that you have tidy ends at the headland for one final perimeter pass. By avoiding unwanted overlaps, you save resources, avoid crop growth rate differences, and prevent inconsistent crop densities, reducing the threat of disease, pests, and weeds. Another advantage is that first the inside of the field and then the headland can be worked on.
VARIABLE RATE CONTROL
VARIABLE RATE CONTROL offers site specific application of seed/fertiliser taking the site soil conditions into consideration. The basis for this is an application map, which you create on the farm PC before starting work in the field. An FMIS (Farm Management and Information System), of which there are now various providers, will help you. An application map provides information on the application rates adapted to the soil conditions, which are marked in different colour zones. When creating application maps, you can draw on your own experience with the respective field, as well as soil samples, satellite data, etc.
The intelligent distributor head
IDS – flexibility that pays dividends
The unique IDS system (Intelligent Distribution System) controls all outlets via the bus system. This opens up completely new capabilities in seed row and tramline switching. With IDS, there are no limits to the freedom you have when working. IDS is perfect for contractors and machinery rings.
It is easy to set the tramlines at the terminal – there is no need to change the hoses.
Choose any of the following:
Special tramline switching
Dual tramline systems
The intelligent heart of the system
The IDS distributor head ensures uniform crop growth by maintaining a completely consistent seed count in all coulter pipes.
Reliable and straightforward: Tramline switching
Tramline switching is performed electronically using actuator motors. Straighforward setting and monitoring functions using the terminal.
Seed flow sensors
For convenience and reliability
Convenient seed flow monitoring on all PÖTTINGER pneumatic seed drills. Each coulter pipe is fitted with a sensor which checks the seed flow. The sensor sensitivity can be adjusted in three stages depending on the seed material (fine, normal, large).
Seed flow monitoring is displayed on each terminal, on the POWER CONTROL, EXPERT 75, CCI 1200 and on the ISOBUS tractor terminal. In the event of a blockade, the driver receives a message about the current status. If a coulter pipe becomes blocked, the row number is displayed directly on the terminal.
Additional convenience is provided by the LED lights mounted directly on the sensor on each coulter pipe. This allows the driver to immediately detect the clogged seed line even when the seed drill is dusty or at night.
Precision drill technology
All-in-one for pure flexibility
PCS (Precision Combi Seeding) integrates precision seed drilling technology into a pneumatic seed drill, offering another option to dedicated single seed drills. This means more flexibility and more economically operation.
A seed drill for 4 applications
Maize without fertiliser
Maize with fertiliser
Maize with companion crop
Your advantages with PCS
Reduction in investment costs by combining pneumatic seed drill with single seed drill
Multiple uses for machine combination
No separate precision seed drill required
Independence from contractor
Reduction in fixed operating costs per hectare
Expansion to range of applications – high flexibility
Improves the environment and energy situation
Minimises erosion by leaving behind a surface without marks
Grass seed erosion protection drilled simultaneously in a single pass
One-pass maize planting
More efficient and saves more fuel
Dressing dust goes directly into the furrow and is covered immediately
DUPLEX SEED
Drilling maize in double rows
Intelligent maize drilling in double rows DUPLEX SEED
If your AEROSEM is equipped with PCS, you can also sow maize in double rows: With 12.5 cm spacing within the double row, double grain spacing and 75 cm double row spacing. This intelligent configuration has numerous advantages:
Performance increase when sowing a higher driving speed
Maize in twin rows gives the plant perfect growing conditions
Up to 30% more space between each seed – more light – more nutrients – increased photosynthesis
Up to 70% larger area per plant – more water – improved root penetration – less competition between plants
DUPLEX SEED for more cost effectiveness
Reduces the risk of erosion
Better shade on the ground – fast row integration
Up to 5.5% increase in yield with silage maize
Up to 5.5% increase in yield with corn maize
Camera supported seedbed preparation
Your way to the best working results
Best quality tilth and optimum preparation of the seedbed are key to successful seed germination and growth. The seedbed should ideally be as coarse as possible and as fine as necessary. In practice, it is a challenge to select the right tillage intensity of the soil to match each crop. The main issue is to avoid ponding and crusting on silty soils. That is because cultivating the soil too finely leads to erosion, making it easier for fine soil particles to be washed away. However, eroded soil is valuable capital that the farmer then loses.
Perfect seedbed thanks to real-time measurement
The award-winning camera assisted seedbed preparation development by POTTINGER, focusses precisely on this issue. The aim is to enable consistent seedbed preparation and seed placement depending on the condition of the soil. The system measures in real time the surface roughness of the soil using images from a camera mounted between the power harrow and the seed drill that detects depth differences. The PTO speed and driving speed of the tractor are regulated as a function of the roughness values detected (only in connection with CNH tractors (Class III)). The unit therefore controls the tractor automatically to adapt to changing soil conditions. The working results are an optimised seedbed with uniform tilth across the entire field.
Your advantages with camera supported seedbed preparation
Optimum soil structure – exact depth placement – ideal germination conditions – rapid emergence – stress-resistant plants for plant protection applications
Minimises proportion of fine soil: Erosion reduction
Less driver fatigue: Fully automated work sequence, no visual check of the seedbed necessary any more
Optimisation of diesel consumption: No more manual adjustment of rotor speed and driving speed required
Night work is also possible because the system does not rely on daylight
Possible to create a surface roughness map of the field: Useful for subsequent processes
Digital Agricultural Technology – Soil & Seeds Convenience and efficiency for soil and seed PÖTTINGER offers you a comprehensive range of intelligent solutions for tillage and drilling that
Soil seed bank
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Soil seed bank, natural storage of seeds in the leaf litter, on the soil surface, or in the soil of many ecosystems, which serves as a repository for the production of subsequent generations of plants to enable their survival. The term soil seed bank can be used to describe the storage of seeds from a single species or from all the species in a particular area. Given the variety of stresses that ecosystems experience—such as cold, wildfire, drought, and disturbance—seed banks are often a crucial survival mechanism for many plants and maintain the long-term stability of ecosystems.
The role of seed dormancy
Seed dormancy and environmental constraints on germination influence various characteristics of soil seed banks. For example, seed dormancy determines how long a seed can remain viable in the soil. Factors such as embryo immaturity, chemical inhibitors, and physical constraints influence seed dormancy. Light filtered through plant canopies, for example, can inhibit germination in some species, while a long winter chilling may break dormancy in other species. The result is a considerable variety in the patterns of germination of the seed banks by seasons, disturbances, or other environmental shifts.
Variation in the characteristics of seed dormancy determine whether a species’s soil seed bank is transient (temporary) or persistent. Transient seed banks are composed of species that produce seeds with a brief or no period of dormancy. Such seeds generally germinate prior to the next round of seed production, and the seed bank is thus continually depleted and reestablished. Transient seed banks are typical for many plants, especially long-lived perennials such as trees and shrubs. Often, such species rely on other strategies or life-history stages for persistence. For example, species may depend on long-lived adults, “banks” of seedlings in a forest understory, or extensive seed dispersal. In contrast, species with persistent seed banks have seeds that can remain dormant for more than a year, meaning that there is always some viable seed in the soil as a reserve. Persistent seed banks are common in annual plants and some woody plants, in which the failure of seed to establish the next generation would mean the collapse of the population. Scientists sometimes further classify persistent seed banks based on the extent or pattern of dormancy.
The role of disturbance
In addition to dormancy, considerable variation occurs in seed bank germination because of seasonal or other environmental shifts. Disturbances such as fire, flooding, windstorms, plowing, or forest clearing are frequently strong selective forces and may increase the overall germination response of seeds. Ecosystems characterized by wildfire often have extreme cases of persistent seed banks, as is common for many areas with Mediterranean climates, such as Australia, California, and South Africa. In those ecosystems the germination of many species requires signals provided by fire, such as a heat pulse into the soil or chemicals from smoke or charred wood. Germination may not occur until after a wildfire, which then results in mass germination from the seed bank the following spring. Similarly, the seed banks of agricultural weeds are often well adapted to the almost continuous human-made disturbances of their environment. Such weeds frequently have complex dormancy patterns that reflect the agricultural practices under which they evolved.
Seed bank modeling
Researcher Dan Cohen was one of the first scientists to model soil seed banks. In the 1960s, focusing on desert annuals subject to highly irregular rainfall, he developed population-dynamics models that suggested that a reserve of some fraction of seed in the soil was essential for the plants to avoid local extinction. Cohen found that the dynamics of soil seed banks reflect the degree of ecological constraint a species or population faces in establishing the next generation. Although his work focused on annuals, the conceptual framework applies readily to any plant species. Such modeling is important to ecological research and conservation planning, as traditional demographic models and field surveys often fail to consider population reserves in the soil.
Soil seed bank, the natural storage of seeds in or on the soil of many ecosystems, which serves as a repository for subsequent generations of plants.