Pieter Janse van Rensburg, who has been farming in the Mpongwe region for the last 20 years, believes in healthy soil. He also believes that burning wheat stover and relying completely on herbicides for weed control will, in the long run, deplete his soil. The challenge was to find economically viable alternatives.

 Going blue with LEMKEN provided solutions. “I still spray Roundup when I need to but I try to cut it out as much as possible,” says Pieter. As most irrigation farmers will know, the period between harvesting wheat and establishing soy beans or maize is extremely short and many farmers are still burning the mass of stover providing a quick fix to clear the land before planting.  Pieter says he has three to four weeks and he decided to rather use this time to put the biomass back into the soil. 

    He has already been using LEMKEN’s Rubin disc harrow in combination with the Solitair planter for a number of years to handle maize or soy stubble and plant in one pass, but for wheat stover a deeper cultivation is needed. LEMKEN’s Karat came to the rescue.

    The Karat is a tyne combination implement that does a lot more than loosening soil. Working at a depth of 10 to 30 centimetres, the Karat incorporates straw and organic material intensively and distributes both evenly in the ground.

    Pieter says he makes one pass with the Karat after harvesting to work the organic mass into the soil. He then irrigates the land to encourage germination of weeds and regrowth. Secondly he comes in with the Rubin/Solitair disc harrow planter combination which cuts through the stubble and uproots the seedlings for mecha-nical weed control, eliminating the need to spray whilst planting.

    The Karat or Rubin can also work fertilizer into the soil while preparing a perfect seedbed for the new season.

    Pieter uses a 6 meter Karat drawn by a John Deere 8335R which provides enough horsepower for deep cultivation if necessary. He is very impressed with the quality of all the LEMKEN equipment. “You can see a lot of thought went into the design, and they must have run many tests to develop an implement that can handle so many conditions perfectly.”

    Being a pioneer commercial farmer in the Copper Belt, Pieter has faced some difficult times, but he is encou-raged by the growth and development of agriculture. He says: “New techno-logy and the support of a reliable

service network as established by

AFGRI, have certainly helped us to farm more productively.”

    He has bought his LEMKEN equipment through AFGRI and is very satisfied with the service provided by JP Smit and his team from Mkushi. “I know the essential parts are available, and if not, they can have it send up from SA in a relatively short time.”

JP also recently had the distinction of selling the very first Solitair 12 planter in Africa. It was sold to Golden Lay LTD egg farm to establish soy beans and other crops used for chicken feed.

    The Solitair 12 is a trailed pneuma-tic seed drill with working widths of 8 to 12 metres. With a volume of about 5 800 litres, the large seed hopper supports extended periods of work. The seeding shafts in the metering unit are driven by an electric motor and are electronically regulated for an even flow of seeds.

Call Blackie Swart at +27-82-404-9651 in South Africa, or contact your closest AFGRI dealer. JP Smit can be reached on +260-96-584-9068 or jp@afgri.com.zm. See the complete range of equipment at www.lemken.com.