Kverneland Group is back in the self-propelled sprayer game with a skid-unit sourced from Italy and a spray pack from Vicon. This unlikely marriage came about from a slightly unconventional route. For ten years a specialist sprayer dealer near Rau’s base in the Netherlands has been pairing the firm’s booms, pumps and pipework with a self-propelled chassis built by Mazzotti, close to Bologna in northern Italy.   Recognising a fairly major chasm in its line-up, Vicon saw that this unlikely combination had a proven track record in the field and felt that it was a better option than developing it’s own self-propelled machine from scratch. Under the skin it’s all pretty familiar fare – a 240hp Perkins-branded Caterpillar six-cylinder provides the muscle driving a Sauer Danfoss hydrostatic transmission and Poclain wheel motors.  Two polyester (fibreglass) tanks are available – 4,000 and 5,000-litres – made by Mazzotti. However the rest of the spray pack is 100% Vicon-sourced from the firm’s top-end iXtrack trailed machines. Boom choice ranges from 24m to 30m in aluminium and from 27m to 40m in steel. Norac auto height control is an option and it’s possible to divide the boom up into up to 15 sections for GPS auto-switching.  Up front a Claas Vista cab – borrowed from the German firm’s Lexion combines – houses the operator and a Kverneland Tellus ISObus touchcreen deals with all sprayer functions. And there’s a new development on that front too – buyers opting for the all-singing, all-dancing set-up will now have the option of voice-activated controls, leaving the operator’s hands free for other essential tasks.  Production machines will be assembled at the Mazzotti factory and the first examples are currently rolling off the line. In the UK the sprayer will be marketed as the Vicon iXdrive while the rest of Europe will see it branded as Kverneland.