29 April 2014

​Melons and onions in “Life House Farm”

On this occasion, we are going to talk about melons and onions... it is the first time we publish information about these interesting crops. Our friend and follower Antonio Miguel Galán Molina-Prados sent us a few pictures and explained us about how they carry out these tasks in their farm called Life House. This farm is about 20 km from his village called Herencia (Ciudad Real). The name of his farm was given because this farm was the only place with water around there, and water is synonym of life.

As he commented, his village has always been a place with lots of people who had worked in the orchard because they have exceptional soil with plenty of water to irrigation, so the more predominant crops have always been lettuce, tomatoes, melons, watermelons, onions,... these crops require a great experience and dedication.

As you can see in his pictures the first step to plant melons is fixing the drip pipes together with some plastics to cover soil in order to avoid weeds. These plastics are seated at 2m from one to the following one and the droppers are seated at 75cm each. After that, the melon plant is fixed manually at 1​.​5m each. Finally, these plants are covered with other plastic called blanket what will do a small greenhouse effect to protect them from the cold. He told us in future plantations they won't use it.

When the planting job is finished, irritation tasks begin. At the beginning, they water them 1​.5 hours every three days and it will be rise as the plant grows to reach watering them during 3 hours every day... finally, the aim is to get 4 or 5 melons of 3 of 5 kg each, per plant. We can ensure we will publish some pictures when the melons will be ready to be harvested.

Regarding onions, they use a small machinery what buries stones and it has a spiked roller sets where plants will be put (this year, they have installed the Trimble EZ-Pilot assisted steering system and it allows us to carry out perfectly). The workers use a special tool to plant onion what allows them to do these tasks without generate any damages in the stem and leaves of onion plants.

Thank you very much for your pictures... it has been very interesting!





23 April 2014

NeoTwin System

Last weekend,  the General Agrícola company and its official distributor in our area called Ferropro, S.L. invited us to their new nebulizer presentation together with the NeoTwin system... it was a really amazing morning!!

Firstly, they gave a small speech to explain us about this machinery works, advantages, objectives, main features,... After that, we visited close fields where it had been prepared a field demonstration. We visited two different fields: the first had garlic and the second had barley. We could see how this nebulizer works with different configurations. Finally, all guest could taste a good banquet with wine, ham, Manchego cheese,...

This new system consists of an air turbine of 550 cm diameter (it can be axial or centrifugal according to the needs of the farmer) that distributes air through some PVC pipes what have holes to throw spray liquid and air (it uses venturi nozzles). One of the most important feature is that the farmer can guide the air curtain to fit the culture sprayed. Other important characteristic is that you can save liquid because if you use a column of air the liquid has bigger penetration in the crop with less litres used. This system is manufactured for suspended nebulizer from 400 to 2,000 litres and trailed nebulizer of 1,000 to 5,000 litres. The working width, pump, tank size,... farmer can configure to satisfy his needs.

The NeoTwin system is made to use in overgrown crops (garlic, onions, cauliflower, lettuce,...) because it allows us to put liquid in the most hidden areas of the plant due to air can move all leaves to give way the liquid. When the air disappears, the leaves can come back the original position. We could test it in garlic working with a pressure of 10bar (it uses a high pressure pump of ceramics pistons what can work from 1bar to 40bar)... all parts of the leaves were completely wet (it didn't happen when the NeoTwin system was switched off). Another important point is its price because they said us this system only raises the price about 15%.


Videos: video1 and video2


Pictures:
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin
General Agrícola Nebulizador con Sistema NeoTwin