REPORT: For his degree thesis, Michael Horlacher stayed close to what he knows, focusing on lime application at his contracting business. This is the result.
Horlacher is a contracting firm that offers agricultural services 70km around the village of Untermünkheim in Baden-Württemberg, between Stuttgart and Nuremberg. Much of the German firm’s work involves the spreading of carbon lime from the Südzucker factory in nearby Offenau.
Three variants
Since 1982, the Horlachers have been relying on a couple of tractors with spreaders and a wheeled or telescopic loader for this lime work. “This made us efficient, but we always required three drivers and two tractors,” explains Michael Horlacher. As a key part of his agricultural studies at the Weihenstephan-Triesdorf University of Applied Sciences, he used his bachelor’s thesis to examine the lime application service. He was particularly interested in Siwi’s quick coupling system, which converts the job into a one-man, one-tractor operation … just as Bedfordshire-based MJ Petty Contractors has done — see profi 7/2021.
“In a practical test over a season, I collected and compared the data of three systems,” Michael explains. “This included data such as GPS position, fuel
consumption, pto speed, forward speed and operating hours. For a direct comparison, some of the lime was spread as before using two tractor-spreader combinations and one telehandler. While two single-axle spreaders used to do all the lime work, we replaced one of the smaller machines in 2015 with a 12t capacity, tandem axle spreader.
For more up-to-date farming news click here and subscribe now to profi and save.
