Hose runner saves time and effort
Rakaia-based equipment manufacturer Pluck’s Engineering will soon start production of a new machine designed to simplify the deployment and retrieval of temporary water troughs used in winter break feeding.
The new camera control makes detection easier in crops with a high proportion of blue in the leaves, so offers a clear advantage in mechanical weed control, in the cultivation of crops such as onions, leeks, broccoli or red cabbage.
Developed in-house, the standard IC-Light camera system fitted to Lemken Steketee hoeing machines captures the RGB colour range and reliably distinguishes between hues of green and red, while thanks to its selflearning mode, the system continuously develops as it is being used.
The new IC-Light+ camera also captures hues of blue, allowing very young plants or plants with a particularly fine structure to be better identified and shown. As an example, the camera easily identifies onions the size of a pin head.
The IC-Light+ camera is operated via the IC-Light terminal and allows hoeing as close as two centimetres from crop plants, at forward speeds of up to 15 km/h. The camera detects up to five rows of plants at a time and controls the steering of the hoeing machine between the rows.
