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“This area is known for its production of high-quality sweet fruit since it has a favorable climate,” says Jaume Viladegut, one of the three brothers who run the company. But there’s more to it than profitable surroundings: Jaume tells us about the benefits of ‘controlled traffic farming’.
“We created the company based on our experience producing sweet fruit. We are the producers. We also have a nursery business and, to serve our end clients, we created a planting service business as well. There, we work with GPS guidance technology.”Prosperity has increased significantly during the past century. So has the world population. A challenging question arises: how do we make sure enough food is produced for everyone? Cutting-edge technology plays a great role in answering the question.
Let’s have a look behind the scenes in Soses, a village in Catalonia, Spain. Here, production company Vivers Viladegut contributes their fair share to the world’s demand for nutrition.
Having invested in controlled farming methods and techniques, Vivers Viladegut now reaps what they have sown. On a yearly basis, the company grows 800,000 plants and produces 3,500 tons of fresh fruit. Imagine how many boxes of peaches and apricots you could fill with such an impressive amount. How do they get this done?
It reduces the damage the soil suffers from all the heavy machinery driving back and forth on it. It improves fuel use at the same time. And ultimately, it improves crop yields. In all, controlled traffic farming is a valuable way of working for agricultural professionals.
“We’ve brought in the right technology for controlled traffic farming. We are the first company in Spain to implement this in agriculture,” Jaume tells us.
The accuracy of the data collected by Vivers Viladegut’s GPS equipment is enhanced with RTK (Real Time Kinematic). “We have a base with RTK of the utmost precision and then we are able to sow the plots of land more quickly. We sow within the planting framework the client sets out for us.”
“What we do is use data from previous irrigation measurements, to do the planting ourselves afterward in the same location. It’s important so the planting can be done perfectly, quickly and economically. We try to do everything with greater precision and perfection.”
“We began working with Topcon when we set up the first planter some years ago. Right from the start, everything went well. They are always developing, and every so often, they bring in innovations that improve the systems,” says Jaume.
So which technology have they been using? “We’ve been working for some time with two GPS planters with self-guidance. We have an X25 screen and another screen that performs the function of automating the platform for us. This year, we brought in the Optimal Lines technology for controlled traffic farming,” says Jaume. It helps Vivers Viladegut determine the quality of their fields. “This makes the process of planting easier, using topographic measurements from projects done by irrigation companies.”
Increasing the quantity and improving the quality of their product while taking good care of their land, the team in Soses is certainly doing an amazing job. Controlled traffic farming is proving to be a fruitful method for Vivers Viladegut.
