The Robs4Crops Consortium products

Mechanical weeding in vineyards with a tractor driver is not economically attractive (€800 per ha; 5-7 passes per year). Moreover, around seven different implements are used to achieve complete crop management: 3 tools for inter-row and 4 tools for intra-row, with 3 experienced drivers to handle the tractor/implement operation for an area of 40 ha.

Traditional vegetable farms in the Loire Valley are based on bed cropping, in open field or under cold plastic greenhouse. More than 60 kinds of vegetables are grown and the pilot area requires 20 workers for an area of 70 ha to cultivate salads, lamb lettuce, leeks, baby-leaf salad, carrots, and in one year, several (3-5) crops are produced at the same place. As a result, many kinds of tasks must be managed on different vegetables, and many tools must be available at any time, while several passes of tractors damage the soil and cause severe compaction. That is the reason why, most often, old tractors are used with always the same tool: tools are not uncoupled.

The Greek pilot will focus on spraying table grape vineyards. Table grapes is an important product in the Mediterranean basin and indeed, the EU is the third larger producer of table grapes in the world after China and Turkey.  Getting the quality level needed is not an easy task for table grape growers, since the crop has a short shelf life, supermarkets and consumers impose very high-quality standards and the fruit is highly sensitive to pests and diseases, with preventive and curative spraying to occupy most of the farmer’s effort throughout the season.

One of the most popular fruits cultivated in the Catalonia region are apples with the Giropoma Costa Brava S.I. cooperative producing in an area of 140 ha a total yield of 30-35,000 tons per year, with a value of around 30 million euros. However, apple orchards require many spray applications to be protected against fungal diseases. As a result, a large amount of fungicides is used and much labor is needed for their application, while farmers do not consider the growing stage of the trees and the disease severity when applying chemicals (uniform application).

In the Netherlands, ROBS4CROPS will establish a pilot in a potato crop rotation. Netherlands is the 4th largest producer of potatoes and seeds in European Union, with more than 6 million tonnes each year. In this pilot, the Robotti robot produced by AgroIntelli, will be used in a pilot farm where the potato area is up to 50 ha. Presently, heavy conventional tractors are used in combination with various implements to perform most of the field operations which leads to soil structure damage.