TECHNICAL: As part of our Lemken Karat 10 practical test, we also tried out two electronic features — contour adaption and geo-referenced depth control.
Cultivators are pretty straightforward, simple machines, so farmers are going to take some convincing to start adding costly electronic controls. We wanted to know how much of a difference tech can make, and, when we tested the Lemken Karat (profi 8/20224), we found there’s a fine line between the benefits and downsides.
ContourTrack with potential
In theory, this is an excellent idea: by adding a double-ended hydraulic ram between the tine section and the rear roller, the Karat 10 is able to autonomously adapt to the dips and peaks in a field. The main reason for this is to compensate for the overall length of the four-row cultivator and maintain a uniform working depth across the full working width. The Lemken system utilises a three-pin power plug, an angle sensor and loading-sensing hydraulics.
Compared to the Karat 9, the almost ten-year old contour control system has been slightly modified in that the pressure on the jockey wheels is no longer measured with load-sensing pins. Instead, it now measures the pressure inside the hydraulic cylinders on the depth wheels. The system is easy to use: just pop in the power plug and it is activated. On cultivators with ContourTrack, the scale for the depth control has two pointers. When working on level ground, the extra pointer is aligned with the regular pointer.
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