'Replacing chemistry in more crops in the future'

Boerenbusiness is presenting the Agribusiness Award for the fifth time this year. The prize for companies with an innovative product or new service with a financial advantage for the farmer. One of last year's nominees is Kamps de Wild with the product Nucrop. What has participation meant for the company?

Kamps de Wild continues to make adjustments to the Nucrop with new experiences. Nucrop is a non-chemical system that is suitable for haulm killing in potatoes or controlling weeds and green manure. No chemistry is used, but a conductive fluid is used, which increases the effectiveness of the electrification. With this, Kamps de Wild wants to replace the current systems such as spraying, haulm pulling, haulm blowing and haulm burning. In addition, the ripening of potatoes can be better controlled with the system, resulting in a better quality of the potatoes and appropriate size grading.

New experiences
"We went back to the drawing board with the experiences from the 2022 season," says Marc Slootman of Kamps de Wild. "Based on the experience, we were able to make interesting observations that had to be implemented in the product. The four machines that we had in the country in the Netherlands last year actually all went back to the factory. They were completely dismantled and they are all rebuilt using the current state of the art. We have mainly greatly improved the applicators, so that we create an even better contact surface with the potato haulm and we can work even more effectively."

Contact with innovative companies
Slootman mainly thought it was a very nice experience. "Getting in touch with other companies and participants, including last year's winner, are fun elements. This is seen and we create a broader network within our sector. In addition, it is important that you can reach a wide audience with an innovation. You need that to ultimately create some support for a technique like that of Nucrop. Even with the disappearance of a number of crop protection products, it is important that we are seen, the Agribusiness Award is a great initiative for that."

Optimal functioning in arable farming
Kamps de Wild is very pleased with the current developments in the product. "What we now know is very positive, but we also want to offer the opportunity to demonstrate this in practice. We hope that this will convince our customers, the farmers, well on the basis of facts. It is a considerable investment, but with that we can we are taking good steps together. Our ambition is to ultimately realize a mature system that fits the Dutch sector. With the recent adjustments we have realized a technique that we believe will function optimally in arable farming. We want to roll this out more widely , so that we can also replace chemistry in other crops."

Agribusiness Awards 2023
Has your company also brought an innovation onto the market with a financial advantage for the farmer? Sign up for the Boerenbusiness Agribusiness Award 2023! The registration page is now open. For more information, go to Boerenbusiness.nl/Award.

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