Swiss sprayer manufacturer Ecorobotix has put a new 12-metre-wide spot sprayer, the ARA 1200, in front of the public for the first time at the AgroTechniek Holland (ATH) machinery fair in Biddinghuizen, the Netherlands. The machine on the stand is still a prototype, but the company says its basic design is all but final.

Under the covers the technology is the same as on the ARA 620, the 6-metre version that growers already know: cameras identify individual weeds and the nozzles treat only those plants, cutting the amount of herbicide put on a field. What is new on the wider machine is the frame. The ARA 1200 weighs 2,000 kg, runs on a wheel set at the rear, and folds to a transport width that is narrower than that of the ARA 620.

For the road, the centre sections fold upwards and the outer sections fold downwards, which leaves the white protective cover on the outside and shields the spray nozzles underneath. A new control box has been added: using load sensing, it drives all the hydraulic functions, such as folding in and out and locking the support wheels. Details such as the cable runs, the company admits, still need tidying before series production.

Alongside the ARA 1200, Ecorobotix is introducing a 9-metre ARA 900. The company puts the ARA 1200 at around €210,000 and the ARA 900 at about €180,000; the existing ARA 620 costs €134,000. The wider machines can be ordered now, but deliveries before next season are no longer possible because the machines available for that period have already sold out.

Ecorobotix says it will deploy around 20 of the machines worldwide, rolling them out to end customers at a steady pace so that service remains manageable. For growers of row crops such as sugar beet, onions and vegetables, the wider boom means the same targeted spraying at twice the working width of the current model.

Source: Future Farming