APV PS 250 M2 seeder APV is a small Austrian company specialising in ‘different’ products for agriculture, with Keith Rennie Machinery the UK importer. Its PS 250 M2 air seeder can do a variety of jobs while carried piggy-back on another implement.

APV’s PS 150 and 250 M2 are lightweight stand-alone air seeders with eight outlet tubes. Models are split by hopper capacity: the 150 has a 150-litre plastic hopper, the 250 has a 250-litre hopper. Both variants use an electrically powered metering system and fan, so the unit can mount on almost any implement without the complication of providing mechanical drive. Outlets can be spaced up to 750mm apart, so achieving a maximum working width of 6m.

To see what APV’s baby can do, we put the larger capacity PS 250 M2 on a Czechbuilt 5m SMS disc/crumbler cultivator. The seeder comes with a mounting plate, 30m of spiral hose, a total of eight distribution heads, a seed calibration kit and distribution rollers for small and large seed types. Each head is simply a dispersion plate with a stub to carry the hose. Ground speed on the 250 variant can be
sensed by an optional landwheel, while both models can use an extended wiring loom if more cable is required by a long cultivation train. If your tractor has a seven-pin ISO signal socket you won’t need a landwheel, as an optional cable can let the seeder pick up speed- and linkage position info from the tractor. A separate sensor for semi-mounted implements is a planned option.

Although tapping into the tractor’s data stream is a good idea, we didn’t manage to get the cable option to work consistently in practice, either with a Deutz-Fahr or John Deere. So the landwheel remains the most universal drive option, always provided you can find a home for it on the carrier machine. Obviously it can be used with any tractor and works well — small stakes on the rim provide positive drive and a built-in brake stops the wheel from spinning as the implement lifts.

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