Agritechnica, the most important trade fair in agricultural mechanization, closed with a big success

Agritechnica 2013 has been attended by 450,000 visitors from 83 countries, 120,000 of them coming from abroad. 2,898 exhibitors from 47 countries showed their news.

The fair clearly confirmed that technology applied to agricultural machines is more and more sophisticated compared to the past.

During thousands of years, the agricultural machines evolved following the evolution of technology and energy sources, becoming more and more efficient and able to perform multiple operations at the same time.

Nowadays, in particular, mechanization is being intensively used in all the branches of agriculture and is concerning all the agricultural operations.

The new concept of ‘Precision agriculture’ is spreading, i.e. a farming management concept based on advanced instruments and aimed to agronomic interventions keeping into account the real cultural requirements and the biochemical and physical features of the soil.

An example is given by the assisted guide systems, most of which operate through a GPS receiver connected to the tractor or the harvester-threasher. This allows the real-time identification of the position. The automatic guide system directly operates on the steering, where the GPS keeps the swathes perfectly parallel with a minimum overlapping, giving the benefits of less stress for the operator, time savings and less wastes. On a hand-held computer the shape of the field to be treated is schematized, together with the shape of the tractor and the performed swathes are displayed. When the operator makes an overlapping, the hand-held computer gives a warning, generally through a sound signal.