With the HORSCH coulter pressure regulation system AutoForce the user can permanently and automatically adjust the coulter pressure according to pre-set parameters. Thus, soil differences resp. varying soil conditions are balanced continuously.
When sowing row crops like maize, sunflowers, soybeans and sugar beet, the distribution of the grains in the row and safely keeping up the accuracy of the placement depth is decisive for optimum yields. The keeping-up of the correct placement depth is on the one hand guaranteed by the arrangement of the depth control wheels directly beside the seed coulter and on the other hand it is stabilised by sufficient coulter pressure. The HORSCH Maestro single grain seed drills are able to work with a coulter pressure of a maximum 350 kg per row. In practice, especially with heterogenous types of soil and varying soil moisture, there often is the question which coulter pressure will be the right one. In most cases the farmer takes the most difficult type of soil in the field and adjusts the coulter pressure to exactly maintain the desired placement depth and to press the seed into the pre-consolidated seedbed in the most optimum way. As a consequence the coulter pressure in other soil areas of the same field is too high. The results are compactions and constraints on the early growth of the crop.
The sensor technology that is required for HORSCH AutoForce is located at the tandem connection of the depth control wheels. It measures the weight-loading of the depth control wheels. The weight recording is carried out with strain gauges and is fully integrated in the hardware and the software of the HORSCH Maestro. Then the regulation itself permanently intervenes in the standard hydraulic coulter pressure system of the HORSCH Maestro.
HORSCH AutoForce has been available as an additional equipment since 2016 and excels due to its simple integration into existing HORSCH Maestro single grain technology. It is the only system on the market that is able to guarantee the coulter pressure over the whole working width by means of an hydraulic power transmission from the middle of the machine (seed waggon) to the outside wings. This is why an automatic coulter pressure control makes sense.