Meet the trailed drill they say can work in wet conditions

Farmhand has been the exclusive Irish importer for Amazone machinery since 1968, and is now boasting the new Amazone Cayena large-area seed drill.

“Amazone have been a leader in sprayer and spreader technology in Ireland for years. With this new range of Cayena drills, we think we have a trailed drill with some valuable features that nobody else can offer,“ said Stephen Scrivener, sales director for Farmhand.

“The brand is synonymous with quality and precision.”

John Phelan is a tillage farmer in Co. Kilkenny, and farms in partnership with his cousin, Eamonn. Last September they made the decision to purchase the Amazone Cayena seed drill.

“Because the 2019 planting was so wet we felt we needed to look at different options that would work in those trickier conditions,” John said.

“We went with the Amazone Cayena and so far we’re pleased with it, although the conditions have been much better this year.”

The Cayena tine coulter seed drill has been designed for high-speed sowing in any ground type with or without prior soil tillage. With its 6m working width and 3,600L hopper capacity, the Cayena can achieve enormous work rates and, as an alternative, the Cayena-C comes with a 4,000L, twin tank hopper.

Donny Cloney, midlands area sales manager for Farmhand, has been demonstrating the Amazone Cayena this spring.

“The Amazone Cayena is ideal for direct drilling in Irish conditions, minimal soil disturbance with the narrow armour plated tines means that this machine works well in Ireland’s wetter soil conditions – both direct drilling and planting in cultivated ground,” said Donny.

Amazone Cayena 6001- C walk around

Compact and easily manoeuvrable

Thanks to the lower link attachment, integrated running gear and hydraulically folding wings, the new Cayena is sure to impress as a compact and easily manoeuvrable unit.

The Cayena drill is compact in transport at 2.9m in width, and with the seeding tines mounted under the hopper, the machine is very manoeuvrable in the field.

As the seed hopper is fitted at the front of the Cayena, the major part of the machine weight rests on the rear axle of the tractor. This improves traction enormously.

‘Very user friendly’

For simplifying the calibration of this machine, along with the pre-metering or residue emptying functions, Amazone offers the Comfort-Pack 1 with TwinTerminal 3.0.

Instead of a calibration button, the TwinTerminal is fitted in the SmartCenter at the seeding point. This position offers the benefit of the driver now being able to carry out the data input for the calibration procedure directly at the machine, making repeated climbing up and down into the tractor no longer necessary.

“It’s handy that you have a console closer to your seed outlet that you can calibrate at your seeding point and relays directly back to tractor,” John Phelan explains.

“It’s very user friendly. We would calibrate every morning, probably twice a day to be sure of it as we’re also putting fertiliser down at drilling as well, but you’d have it set up in three or four minutes.”

Big drill with small horsepower requirement

Thanks to their extremely narrow shape, the hard metal armoured coulters of the Cayena easily penetrate the soil and move only a little – minimising the loss of soil moisture when sowing.

The narrow coulter shape offers additional decisive advantages: The pulling power requirement of the Cayena is low and the wear of the coulters is reduced to a minimum and, in spite of its large working width of 6m, the Cayena can be operated with tractors from just 100 kW/136HP.

“We’re working some heavy soils but also working some clay loam,” John said.

“Sowing oilseed rape, beet, oats, barleys and rye: The Cayena is a much easier drill to pull than other drag drills, on a mixture of both flat and hills and even in trickier conditions, it’s still an easier drill (to pull).”

Discs and tines

The cutting discs are ideal for pre-cutting and dividing large amounts of straw ahead of the coulters, especially in conditions created by poor straw distribution.

“Large cutting disks are very useful for cutting up the cover crop or any trash on the field when direct drilling and also for opening a slot for the tine folding directly behind it,” said Donny Cloney.

The narrow TineTeC coulters of the Cayena are arranged ‘on grip’ and pull themselves automatically into the soil. As the machine is supported via the tractor’s lower links and the wedge ring tyre roller in the rear, the downward pull of the tines is limited. In this way a permanent, even placement depth of the seed is guaranteed – regardless of the fill level of the seed tank. The two half-side setting elements allow a central, quick and safe adjustment of the sowing depth.

“The tines on this drill are spaced at 16.6cm and the key to success is the narrow tip on the front so it opens up a slot wide enough for seed and fertiliser, minimum soil disturbance and means the tractor in front doesn’t need to be high horsepower,” Donny added.

36 tine coulters and 16.6cm row spacing – in three rows and arranged in an offset to one another on the main frame. The coulters of the Cayena, despite their narrow spacing, allow the easy passage of crop residues and stones. Following the seed placement, the exact harrow S covers the seed furrow with loose soil and levels the soil. The covering intensity of the harrow can be also adjusted centrally. The covering intensity of the harrow can be also adjusted centrally.

“When demonstrating the drill for a customer in dry ground, the customer was delighted at how the narrow coulters were cultivating the land, but not going so deep as to bring up damp soil from underneath,” commented Donny.

Unique to Amazone – Matrix Wheels

“The matrix wheels also perform really well in the field, you can see here each rib on each wheel presses the soil and follows directly behind the cutting disc and the tine, so it reconsolidates the soil,” Donny said.

In transport these wheels are rated for 40km/hour; in the middle, two wheels lift up so there are only four tyres running on the road. This is very good on a cambered road as it stops any swaying of the drill – also, there is no tyre wear on the middle wheels.

The exact harrow is followed by the Amazone wedge ring roller with Matrix tyre profile, consisting of twelve 800mm diameter tyres. The over-sized Matrix roller ensures a highly smooth running and, at the same time, serves as integrated running gear for road transport.

Thanks to its special profile design, the Matrix roller consolidates the seed bed in strips, precisely and exactly above the seed sown. In this way an optimum field emergence is achieved, even under dry conditions.

Simultaneously loose stones are pressed into the soil meaning that a separate operational pass to roll the seedbed is no longer required. Scrapers on the roller ensure that it is not blocked or smeared, even under highly moist conditions.

The Matrix wheel tread pattern allows the Cayena to excel in sticky conditions where other machines can strip the seed and get clogged up.

Hopper

The seed hopper has straight tall sides so consistent seed and fertiliser flow to the metering wheels is ensured on a full or low tank of seed and fertiliser. The seed hopper of the Cayena has been designed to be as large as possible, and yet, compact. This allows an uncluttered view of the TineTeC coulters in operation.

This drill has a 4000L capacity in the tank that is split 60/40 for seed and fertiliser respectively.