Vaderstad has launched a new app – with smartphone and tablet compatibility – that brings pictures in brochures marked with an ‘Augmented Reality’ (AR) logo into a three-dimensional picture and video format.

For example, the AR technology allows farmers and advisers to see how the Tempo seed meter works and is able to deliver “precision at high speed”, or how a roller change in the Fenix III metering system is carried out.

“The AR technology makes content in our new brochures come to life. It’s a good way for us to highlight the agronomic benefits at farm level,” explained Vaderstad UK’s marketing manager Andy Gamble.

The AR app is easy to use. Simply point the smartphone or tablet at the AR icon and this activates the facility, so the user can see images and movement videos on the chosen apparatus.

The Vaderstad AR app is available to download in Apple App or Google Play Store. The first brochures to use this technology are for the Tempo planter and the Seed Hawk air seeder.

Five additional brochures, to be released in October of this year, will follow suit.

Who or what is Vaderstad?

Vaderstad is an interesting entity; it can trace its beginnings back to 1962 – to the 30ha farm of Rune and Siw Stark in a locality of the same name (Vaderstad) in southern Sweden.

Apparently, Rune Stark first used a rigid-tine harrow to till his soil – just like other farmers in his area. These had always been made of wood and, as such, their durability was best described as “limited”.

As the story goes, he grew tired of making a new wooden implement at the start of every season – so he set about making one from steel instead.

Soon enough, ‘Rune Starks Mekaniska Workshop’ was in business and the first building blocks were laid of what is now Vaderstad AB. The rest, as they say, is history.