Springtime means busy times, leading to many growers being shorthanded. With the mobile robots from Harvest Automation many of the material handling challenges like spacing, consolidation, and collection are solved, and now a distributor of this product, Swiss fertilizing company Hauert, added an extra feature that will give growers a bit more peace of mind, namely a fertilizer dispenser. The prototype for their liquid dosing system is ready and they expect to put it on the market soon.
Ludwig Eberspächer and Carsten Strasser of Hauert, demonstrating the mobile robots from Harvest Automation at Plantarium.
When looking at the hydrangea crop, for example, spring is one of their busiest periods of the year, where they not only need to space the crop, but also need to top-dress it. Fortunately, the Harvest Automation robot can complete the task of spacing, but fertilizing the crop is still a time-consuming manual job, explains Ludwig Eberspächer, Product Manager at Hauert.
For this reason, they started to think about solutions and came up with the idea to create a fertilizer dispenser on the mobile robot itself. "Then, when the robot carries the plant, at the same time, it releases the fertilizer on top of the plant. It will save a lot of time and labor for the grower and the ROI (return on investment) is therefore high."
For over a year, they investigated the possibilities and recently, they finished the first prototype of their dosing system for liquid fertilizers. "I assume we can put it on the market next year." A dispenser for a solid fertilizer will follow soon as they are currently working on the prototypes.
For more information:
Hauert
Ludwig Eberspächer,
Email: l.eberspaecher@hauert.com
www.hauert.com