Fendt Momentum Planter

As both farm sizes and weather challenges increase, crop producers told AGCO they needed a high-capacity, high-speed planter that could help them plant and fertilize their crops in less time without causing yield loss from compaction. They were damaging their fields and losing bushels using heavily loaded center-fill-system planters with fully inflated dual wheels.

Farmers in North and South America with sloping fields and terraces needed a way to place seeds at uniform depth so plants would germinate and emerge at the same time. They also wanted to regain time they often lost following contours. Farmers in Brazil wanted a large, fast planter with a rugged toolbar, able to plant their next crop right behind the combine on big acreages, with a shank on the row unit to apply dry fertilizer and till the soil while seeding, all in one pass. European customers especially needed a planter that would fold easily and fit on narrow roads. All customers wanted a reliable machine with as little downtime as possible, for either refills or repairs, that could plant a wide array of crops.

AGCO set out to create its first global planter, using technology and lessons learned from locations all over the world, and then allowing the engineers to start from scratch. During the development process, AGCO purchased Precision Planting, a leading planting technology company already supplying the meters, drives, down-force systems and other row-unit modules used for fast, precise planting.

The process to create and test what would become the first Fendt-branded planter—Momentum—actually lost momentum partway through its development. The project was shelved when economic conditions declined. But team members believed so strongly in the planter that special permission was granted to continue work and take the planter to market in Brazil, where it was an immediate success, selling 80 units and tractors in the first year.

After the cancellation in the U.S., two engineers in Beloit, Kansas, took what was a partial prototype of the planter, and with a small, unofficial budget, continued to develop it in “skunkworks,” secretly. They kept focused on solving multiple agronomic challenges, finding unique design approaches and testing them out by—along with their dads and brothers—planting 12,000 acres with evolving prototypes during two years of key development.

As one of them said, “This thing was born in a shop, created in our minds, but it evolved and grew in the fields.” They also praised the advantages of being able to pool global resources within AGCO to solve problems together and create the best solutions possible with design and field engineers in other countries when the project restarted in full.

Once the Kansas team had a prototype working with innovations such as the Load Logic compaction management system and the vertical contouring toolbar (VCT), they showed it to AGCO product management and agronomic team members in 2017. They were impressed enough to recommend to management that the global planter project be funded again. On-farm trials and agronomic field tests began, and production was set up in Beloit in the U.S. to prepare for a 2020 launch of the Fendt Momentum Planter, for delivery in 2021. The AGCO plant in Ibirubá, Brazil, introduced early models of the base machine to dealers in 2018 and began delivering them to customers in 2019.

One of the early goals for the planter was to design a system that would transfer weight so a fully loaded central seed hopper would no longer cause damaging compaction in the center of the planter. First, the engineers started literally from the ground up by learning the lowest desirable PSI (15) to minimize ground pressure and compaction in the field. But they knew most farmers wouldn’t want to manually deflate tires to plant and then re-inflate for transport.

So they searched out the best very high flexion tires to use with a central tire inflation system and computed how to maintain the right inflation at all times, even with 10,000-pound load swings and changing ground speeds during planting. With strain gauges, the planter can know the weight on each tire. Tire inflation tables programmed into the system use the weight, current tire air pressure and the planter speed to constantly optimize inflation levels, tire by tire.

When it came to weight transfer, they designed algorithms to direct hydraulic actuators to push or lift off weight from the wings of the planter.

Operators have two options for weight transfer: balanced across the wings of the planter, changing as the seed and fertilizer hoppers empty; or “controlled traffic,” putting the weight on the in-line tandem wheels that line up with the tractor tires to keep compaction in a defined path.

To help farmers plant every seed the same depth, or to even get them in the ground on terraces and uneven surfaces, the global design team took advantage of one of the major Momentum innovations—a dual toolbar.

The stationary primary tool bar is in front, and either three or five (depending on model size) independent, intelligent sections operate behind it, ensuring the row units on each section maintain the ideal seeding depth. The combination of the VCT flex and row-unit travel means each row unit has a vertical travel range of 52 inches (132 centimeters) to follow the contour of the terrain.

Compaction is also minimized by using wide, inline-tandem wheels in front of the row units as transport wheels, lined up with the tractor tires and eliminating the pinch rows made by side-by-side dual wheels. Wing wheels run outside the last row unit, putting the wing wheels in the same path on each pass through the field, again reducing overall compaction.

Important to the design of the tool bars and row units was how they would fold for narrow transport. The Beloit engineers designed Momentum to fold into a compact package, only 12 feet (3.65 meters) tall and 12 feet (3.65 meters) wide, but it initially would require the operator to remember and carry out six steps. They decided to automate it, and with the push of one button on the monitor, it folds itself in just over one minute, while reinflating the tires for road transport at the same time.

Momentum owners say they benefit agronomically by being able to achieve “picket-fence” stands with the accuracy and contour-hugging of the planter, and to harvest higher yields due to that uniform emergence and less soil compaction. Being able to do that at high speed with high capacity increases their productivity at planting time.

The Fendt Momentum Planter delivers high capacity with twin seed tanks that hold 65 bushels each and a 1,000-gallon (3,785-liter) liquid fertilizer tank. This allows operators to plant about 340 acres (137.6 hectares) between seed fills and 100 to 250 acres (40.5 to 101 hectares) between starter fertilizer fills, depending on the rate being applied.

In North America, the Fendt Momentum Planter is offered in models ranging from 12 to 48 rows with variable row spacing. The 30-foot (9.14-meter) Fendt Momentum Planter for smaller farms has the largest liquid fertilizer tank in the category at 800 gallons (3,028 liters), with a 100-bushel seed tank. The widest model—a full 80 feet (24.4 meters) wide with a five-section VCT—will plant larger fields even faster. The dry fertilizer option on Momentum planters gives growers the option to choose the fertilizer formulation that is best for their operation agronomically and economically.

In addition to saving many hours per season with fewer stops to refill tanks, the planter has been shown to save both planting time and fuel as farmers plant fields in straight lines, even over terraces, due to the VCT. Another time-saver is the automatic lift system. When the Precision Planting meters tell the planter all row units are shut off at the end of the field, the Momentum planter automatically lifts the planter, saving time and operator stress on every headland turn.

Integral to the performance of the Fendt Momentum Planter is the advanced technology of the Precision Planting components. The planters come from the factory with these modules integrated:

• Vset2 meter

• vDrive electric drive system

• DeltaForce downforce control

• Conceal banded nitrogen placement

• 20/20 display monitor

• SpeedTube® high-speed seed delivery

Fendt continues to listen to farmer needs as we add improvements to the growing range of Momentum planters, including new integrations of Precision Planting technology such as the EMHD electromagnetic flow meter for row-by-row liquid fertilizer control, the FurrowForce two-stage closing system and the Reveal frame-mounted row cleaner. Momentum will continue to be unmatched in delivering productivity and agronomic value to producers of all sizes across the globe.