{"id":8746,"date":"2023-12-01T12:20:00","date_gmt":"2023-12-01T11:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/?p=8746"},"modified":"2023-12-05T15:47:00","modified_gmt":"2023-12-05T14:47:00","slug":"the-disconcerting-chirp-of-the-planthopper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/2023\/12\/the-disconcerting-chirp-of-the-planthopper\/","title":{"rendered":"The Disconcerting Chirp of the Planthopper"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Attending trade fairs, understanding and explaining product technology, scheduling meetings with manufacturers of farm machinery, and getting to know and understand all their equipment \u2013 it\u2019s all part of the job for the agriculture sales team at Freudenberg Sealing Technologies (FST). But what exactly drives farmers? What does climate change mean to them? And what do planthoppers have to do with potatoes? Jens Wolfram, Global Segment Director, Mobile Machinery, used a personal connection to arrange for his team to visit a farm in Rheinhessen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Klaus Weber is a farmer through and through. He farms about 100 hectares (nearly 250 acres) of land. His wife works with him, and his two sons, Niklas und Yannik, help out when they\u2019re not busy with school work. In the winter, when there is little to do out in the fields, the family focuses on their machines, cleaning and repairing them, and ensuring that their tractors, combine-harvesters and the like are in working condition in the spring. And they restore tractors that have been in the family for decades. \u201cToday\u2019s tractors don\u2019t really get very old anymore. In modern equipment, there are problems with their electronics sooner or later,\u201d said Weber, glancing at his restored jewels. His oldest tractor dates back to 1958.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cereals instead of \u00adPotatoes and Sugar Beets<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Until a few years ago, the family grew potatoes, onions and sugar beets. But climate change has left its mark here as well. High temperatures, little rainfall and pests like planthoppers that spread in the increasingly mild climate have made both potato and sugar beet cultivation unprofitable. Planthoppers, an invasive insect species, carry bacteria that attack the crops. In the case of potatoes, they lead to so-called rubber tubers that are practically unsellable. The bacteria drastically reduce sugar content in sugar beets, sometimes by more than 30 percent. The chemicals used to fight the pests can only be applied in limited amounts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is another issue: As climate change increases the impact of solar radiation, potatoes are not tolerating the warmer conditions well. They need more water. \u201cLocations near woodlands were previously considered less suitable since they shaded a portion of the plants. Today they are still producing excellent yields. Our potato yield was once 45 tons per hectare. Last year, it was 15,\u201d Weber said. The family has learned to live with the climatic changes and has shifted to a different range of crops. Today cereals \u2013 wheat and barley \u2013 are growing where potatoes and sugar beets reigned a few years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A view of the cockpit of one of today\u2019s farming vehicles.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The fascination of technology.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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A \u201cWho\u2019s Who\u201d of Farm Equipment Manufacturers<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The family\u2019s motor pool has a wide range of different tractors and agricultural machinery, which caused the hearts of the FST sales team to flutter. A combine-harvester is one of them \u2013 a Tucano from CLAAS, Armin Strunk, CLAAS key account manager at FST, pointed out during the quick visit to the farm. The other machines also represent a kind of \u201cWho\u2019s Who\u201d of FST customers. Besides CLAAS, there are vehicles from Deutz, Fendt and Massey Ferguson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some farmers share expensive agricultural equipment. Still, the harvest depends on exact timing. When the wheat is ripe and the weather is good, every farmer in the region is in the same mode at the same time. So the run for the harvesters is on. That\u2019s why the Weber family deliberately chose to have its own combine-harvester. The events of the summer of 2023 showed how farsighted this was. A long period of rain followed a week with warm, dry weather. If you didn\u2019t bring your cereal crop in dry at the right time, you suffered substantial losses. The harvest would be getting moldy in the fields.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In October, the cereal seed is sown. Wheat and barley are harvested in early July. Unlike potatoes, cereals can be stored without difficulty. Farmers can wait for the right moment from the seller\u2019s standpoint to sell their crops. Weber has already sold a large portion of the 2023 harvest, but a mountain of grain resembling a sand dune is still stored within a building. It contains 350 tons in a huge mound.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Incidentally, farming is becoming more and more digital. If you climb aboard a modern tractor, it feels more like the cockpit of a spaceship than the cab of a farm vehicle. There are four foot pedals, including two for brakes \u2013 one for the left side, another for the right. Joysticks provide precision control of devices like forage harvesters and presses. A smartphone serves as a documentation tool out in the fields. On the job, Weber uses it to enter what he has fertilized or seeded \u2013 and where and when he did it. Today\u2019s tractors are equipped with GPS. The technology makes it possible for vehicles to drive nearly autonomously \u2013 thanks to perfect lane widths \u2013 and the seeds are sown precisely. There is hardly any overlap in the seeded rows. Property lines can also be determined precisely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The visit to the Weber farm was an exciting opportunity for FST\u2019s agriculture team to learn more about farm equipment in operation, see the company\u2019s products such as seals and accumulators at work in the equipment, and become familiar with important issues in agriculture.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n

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\r\n \r\n <\/i>\r\n <\/a>\r\n <\/span>\r\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Attending trade fairs, understanding and explaining product technology, scheduling meetings with manufacturers of farm machinery, and getting to know and understand all their equipment \u2013 it\u2019s all part of the job…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":8612,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[611,274],"tags":[587],"powerkit_post_featured":[],"class_list":["post-8746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rheinduerkheim-en","category-sustainability","tag-edition-01_2024-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8746"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8746\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8752,"href":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8746\/revisions\/8752"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8746"},{"taxonomy":"powerkit_post_featured","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/powerkit_post_featured?post=8746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}