Bigger discs on a heavy machine allow deeper work. That’s the simple notion behind Amazone’s Certos trailed disc cultivators — but does the theory hold good in practice?
The Certos TX range may not deliver the greatest working width in Amazone’s disc-based cultivator line-up — that honour goes to the 12m Catros 12003-2TS. But the four-strong Certos family can still cover plenty of ground with 4.0m-7.0m passes, while its 660mm scalloped discs (the largest that Amazone uses) are reckoned to work down to 200mm. Here we see what the 4.0m Certos 4001-2TX can do.
The model name untangles as follows: 2 = foldable, T = trailed and X = integrated transport wheels. Power requirement is set at 160-230hp for this 4.0m version, rising to 350hp plus for a 7.0m unit. There’s a good selection of ways to unite this 7.46t unit and a tractor: a ring hitch, a K80 ball or three categories of drawbar. For the 240hp Fendt up front on our test, a Cat III drawbar hitch was a good match, allowing turns of more than 90°; also good to see were the colour-coding and function markings for the hoses that serve Certos’s five doubleacting rams.
Storage for those, plus the brake and electric lines, is good. Five double-acting spools on the tractor are needed for a specced-up Certos, serving folding, lowering/lifting, depth control, Crushboard pitch and ‘pull compensation’ — more on the last of those later. The drawbar has two dampers for its positioning ram to control bounce in work. We needed the facility only once, in very rough going at a specific depth and forward speed, when it worked really well. The test Certos’s dampers leaked and their holding bolts worked loose, problems that Amazone says are now sorted.
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