At Cereals next week OPICO will have its freshly completed range of cultivation and crop establishment equipment on display. Latest additions to the comprehensive line-up include Ovlac ploughs and Alpego power-harrows, drills, rotovators and flail-toppers.

Sitting alongside time-proven HE-VA tillage implements, both are established brands in the UK, well-known by dealers and end-users alike.

Located in northern Spain, Ovlac has been building ploughs for over 85 years. Today it is the country’s largest manufacturer of soil-engaging equipment. Mouldboard ploughs remain the firm’s flagship product and Ovlac is regarded as something of a specialist in shallow inversion tillage with a range of ploughs built specifically for that growing market.

Alongside a full offering of conventional and reversible ploughs from two to nine furrows – mounted and semi-mounted – the company has developed its Mini Shallow Plough range to work at depths of between 8cm and 20cm. By adopting this technique, reducing share depth to less than 15cm can halve power requirements enabling smaller tractors to cover far greater working widths – it is possible to have a 13-body plough spanning 5m in one pass.

Although designed to be simple and lightweight, the Mini is extremely robust and has the added advantage of working on-land to avoid furrow bottom compaction. A nine-furrow model will be on show at Cereals alongside a six-furrow version of Ovlac’s XPerience 180 standard reversible plough.

Alpego’s range of cultivation equipment naturally compliments Ovlac’s offering. Best known for its power-harrows, the Italian company’s range spans working widths from 1m right up to 8m. 

At the top end the line-up peaks with the 500hp-rated 8m folding DMAX. A tried-and-tested product, a number of these high-output power-harrows are already out working on the largest farms in the UK, some fitted with Alpego’s piggy-back drills.

Although the company has gained a name for its robust, durable power-harrows over the last 30 years, its line-up has much greater reach with a full range of flail toppers, multi-purpose seed/fertiliser hoppers and rotovators. While Alpego concentrates on conventional machinery, it is known for an innovative approach to design. One example is its unique offering of de-mountable seed drills for tractors with a rear load deck – the hopper and metering unit carried up over the tractor’s rear wheels to maximise traction and optimise weight distribution.

This inventive approach to engineering carries through to Alpego’s rotary cultivators. Rather than employing a conventional chain-drive at one end of the rotor, the Italian company opts instead for a gear-drive to the centre of the shaft. Not only does this ensure an even distribution of load, it also means its rotovators’ overall width is equivalent to their working width without an over-hanging driveline off to one side.

Please feel free to visit the OPICO stand at any point to learn more from our product specialists about the new equipment on display.