Experience of using HARDI technology at one of the largest agricultural holdings in Belarus

JSC "Agrokombinat" Dzerzhinskiy" is the largest company of Dzerzhinskiy district, Minsk region, Republic of Belarus – 14 500 hectares of farmland, including 10 700 hectares of arable land. It has a powerful motor and tractor fleet of more than 350 pieces of equipment. The branches of the company have more than 10 000 heads of cattle. A capacity of feed-milling plants allows to produce 95 000 tons of high-quality mixed fodder and 16 000 tons of premixes.

 "Pyatigorye" became the first industrial agricultural cooperative joined to the JSC "Agrokombinat" Dzerzhinskiy» in 2004 (at that time - Dzerzhinskiy broiler poultry plant), and a year later it began to make a profit. This agricultural branch is less than the others for the area and for the number of employees. However, today the branch is one of the most successful in agricultural holding. Here is the highest yield of rape - 60 cwt. per hectare (in bunker weight) and better labor productivity. This year they have already harvested nearly 9 700 tons of grain, 4 500 tons of corn (in bunker weight). And thanks to a good harvest, the agriculture unit provides a feed not only for themselves, but also for a poultry plant, helping thus to reduce the production cost of agricultural complex. And an important role in this of course plays the presence of modern machinery, among which a worthy place got HARDI sprayers.

About advantages of working on HARDI sprayers had told us Andrey Khomenko, the tractor-driver of agricultural branch "Pyatigorye", where we went for a visit.

As Andrey told us, since 2005 he has been working on Hardi COMMANDER with TWIN function, which prevents drifting in windy weather when applying chemicals. If on ordinary sprayers, which they have in the farm, this function is absent, then in windy weather they stand. And thanks to the TWIN, the sprayer works with wind up to 12 m per second.

The household has about 4,000 hectares of sown areas. With COMMANDER they process potatoes, sugar beet, corn, barley, oilseed rape and all kind of crops.

If we talk about the TWIN, Andrey confidently had confirmed economizing of chemicals. With this function, consumption of chemicals about 15-20% less while spraying. And the fewer of the working liquid drifts, the more and better coverage of the working area. It means that spraying covers foliage and if they work with the pests, COMMANDER is more effectively than ordinary sprayer.

Thus, the machinery has proven itself very well, and has no large complaints. Since 2005, the sprayer has already passed more than 70 000 hectares, and on the basis of this machine "Pyatigorye" had already bought a self-propelled sprayer with the same function TWIN FORCE.