Home » Issue 19-2019 » Farm report » Lean mechanisation: Mindaugas Šemežys; LT

Lean mechanisation

Mindaugas Šemežys - LT

Mindaugas Šemežys, a farmer from Vikaičiai, apparently has found his agronomic system. And it works with a lean mechanisation. terraHORSCH visited his farm in Lithuania.

 

When we arrived in Vikaičiai at the end of October, the weather was rainy and windy. The little town is located about 80 km north of Kaunas, the second largest city in Lithuania. On the farm, most of the work for this year has been done. Harvest is finished, there still is a little tillage to do, but most of the machines have already been winterised and put indoors.

Together with his parents Mindaugas Šemežys farms about 600 ha. From an organisational point of view the farm is divided in two parts, the young farmer joined in in 2007. The structures in Lithuania are varied. Until Lithuania became independent in 1991 almost all arable land was cultivated by collective farms. Today you can find all farm sizes – from self-supporters with one cow to large farms with several thousand hectares.

“We own about 400 ha“, Mindaugas Šemežys explains. “The rest of the fields are rented. In our region, there are some established farms. Therefore, it is not easy to get farmland. But I do not want to grow at all costs anyway. I am quite happy with the present situation.“ The main crops are rape, wheat and barley. The two cereals each make up 40 % of the rotation. Next year the farmer wants to grow sunflowers, provided that he can get seed. It would be possible to cultivate sugar beet, but at the moment it is quite hard to get a contract. Moreover, this would require high investments for the corresponding technology. So he decided to intensify the cultivation of barley. He sows a mustard-pea-mix as a catch crop. The field size varies between one and 80 ha, but most of his fields are 30 to 40 ha. Mindaugas Šemežys employs five people who in addition to the work in the field take care of a lot of service and repair works single-handedly. If there are more difficult problems, they rely on the local dealer. Like everywhere in the rural areas it is quite difficult to find reliable and skilled staff. Mindaugas Šemežys himself is an environmental engineer and has a master degree in agriculture.

Modern equipment

“My parents mainly worked with machines from the East, with Kirovets-K700 tractors from Russia or with model T 150 from the Kharkov tractor plant in the Ukraine”, Mindaugas Šemežys remembers. “My first measure was to change to western technology, to the brands Claas, Case and John Deere. I converted the farm to a minimum tillage system and got rid of the plough.“ Today the farms works with seven tractors between 80 and 520 HP. The smallest one is a Russian tractor, the largest one a Claas Xerion that was bought this year. The rest ranges between 180 and 320 HP. For harvest he uses two combines, a Claas Lexion 540 and a John Deere S785. Beside a self-propelled sprayer with 36 m working width there are two telehandlers and one truck on the farm. Seed drills and tillage tools are from HORSCH: a Joker 8 RT with knife roller in front of the discs, a Focus 6 TD as well as a Partner 2800 HT. Moreover, an Amazone fertiliser spreader is used to apply mineral fertiliser.

Mindaugas Šemežys’s year is as follows: After having spread fertiliser and after a pass with the Joker, sowing is carried out with the Focus. Fertiliser is applied simultaneously - according to the requirements, one half on top and one half in the soil. Especially in dry years, they rather use liquid UAN during the vegetation period which is applied with the self-propelled sprayer. The next step are plant protection treatments. Rape harvest starts mid-July. Stubble cultivation is carried out with the Joker. According to the experiences of the farmer, rape sowing should be finished until 15th of August, wheat should be sown until 10th of September. Barley normally is sown before the 25th of April. Mindaugas Šemežys calculates with one week per crop for all this fields. “In the past years we always managed it“, the farmer says. “We have quite a lot of time in between“, he smiles. “It might be interesting to establish an additional line of business like dairy farming. But I am afraid that this might be rather difficult from an economic point of view because of the high investments that would be necessary.” For Lithuanian conditions, the soil on the farm, a slightly clayey soil, is average.

StripTill proves its worth

“In the past, we often had problems with soil erosion on the hills where the soil was a little bit heavier”, the farmer explains. “The plough definitely had a negative effect. Minimum tillage solved the problem. However, it was not easy to find the right seed drill for our conditions. For we leave all the straw on the field. But the HORSCH Focus is perfect for us. We first bought a second-hand machine that this year was replaced by a new one. And we bought a Xerion to pull the Focus. So far, we have not been thinking too much about no-till farming. The humus ratio in the soil still is too low. To improve it is the focus of our crop production strategy. In this respect, rotation and the cultivation of catch crops are important measures. The cultivation of grain maize is not an issue either. It simply does not fit in in our region as the ripening is not optimum. Because of the high drying costs it would be un-profitable.“

Like in many other regions in Europe the last two summers around Kaunas were too dry. If there was rain, it was scattered. Mindaugas Šemežys for example harvested 3.6 t of rape. One of his neighbours was luckier with the weather and got 3.9 t. In addition, the farmers had to struggle with heat and sunshine. A lot of cereals ripened prematurely. Usually the wheat and barley yields on his farm are 7.5 t and 4 t for rape. For Mindaugas Šemežys StripTill with the Focus is the optimum solution to cope with the climatic conditions that get more and more difficult.

Mindaugas Šemežys mainly uses his free time in winter  to gather information about new methods and systems. But so far, his situation does not call for action. His system works well, is efficient and he can keep his machine costs low. He does not regret his decision to work with StripTill. Some of his colleagues can confirm this. For today ten Focus machines are working in the region. So Mindaugas Šemežys was a real pioneer.