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With the start of summer, the spring season has come to an end. Which also means a time to reflect for farmer Marijn Vermuë on his trial AgBot T2 _{5 SERIES}. The AgBot has been flail mowing, preparing seedbeds and potato ridging the past months. Read all about his experience when using the AgBot, and to what extent can a robot replace a conventional tractor with driver? â€¯ 

In case you missed it, â€˜Robot seeks Farmer‘ is a project of NPPL, where farmers try out an autonomous agricultural machine for a year. Farmer Marijn Vermuë, based in the Netherlands, has been selected to use the AgBot T2 _{5 SERIES} and share his thoughts and experiences. If you want to read more about the project, see our latest article or read about it on NPPL’s website.

The AgBot AgBot T2 _{5 SERIES} proved most effective at preparing land for planting. On flat fields without plow furrows, it works just as efficiently, and almost as fast, as a conventional tractor with a driver. However, unexpected conditions are challenging for the AgBot, in which a driver could react to the situation. Koen van Boheemen from Wageningen University says that this is a part of the natural adaption process where the robot is not adapted to the farm management but:  

‘You would have to approach it differently: adapting the farm management to suit the robot.’ 

When comparing the robot with a driver, there is a big advantage when using a robot. You can put the agronomy as the number one priority, even if the working patterns are uncomfortable for a driver. For example, tilling diagonally instead of in the right direction along the rows often gives a better result, like guaranteeing an even field surface. However, this operation requires frequent turning and lots of bumps which is quite uncomfortable for a driver on a tractor.  

Marijn Vermuë :  

‘If there are a thousand possible occurences during operations, I get the impression that for 980 of them, a solution within the software of the robot already exists that I don’t even know about. The remaining 20 will cause an error.’ 

One of those 20 occurrences would be when the radiator got full because of a large amount of uprising dust during flail mowing. Vermuë called AgXeed for a reversing fan. Luckily, AgXeed only had to direct Vermuë to the right button in the Portal.  

Read more about Vermuë’s experiences with the AgBot T2 _{5 SERIES} here 

Vermuë would have loved to do more operations with his AgBot T2 _{5 SERIES}, like sowing beets. More tasks coming up from late June: cultivation, stubble tillage, and possibly seeding cover crops with a rotary harrow. Stay tuned for more work done by Vermuë through our website and our social media channels! 

World Record for Autonomous Ploughing Achieved by AgXeed and Kverneland

Grubbenvorst, The Netherlands – May 30, 2025 AgXeed and Kverneland have set a new world record at Birch Farm, North Yorkshire, where an AgXeed AgBot T2 _{5 SERIES} tractor and Kverneland LO 300/85 five-furrow plough ploughed 51.8 acres autonomously in 24 hours. Verified by James Whitty of the Society of Ploughmen, this achievement demonstrates autonomous fieldwork viability under real-world conditions.

The AgBot maintained 23 cm depth and 40 cm furrow width, operating at 5.6-8 km/h with only one refuelling stop. Its fuel use averaged 18.4 L/ha, on par with conventional tractors. Pre-trials showed the AgBot used 4.6% less fuel than a farm Fendt 828 Vario, due to its efficient driveline and lack of cab comfort energy demands.

Advanced planning software pre-mapped field boundaries and optimized working patterns. The AgBot autonomously lifted, reversed, and turned the plough, assisted by GPS precision and remote monitoring.

The Kverneland plough’s low-draft body #28 mouldboards ensured quality ploughing even in heavy soils.

“This shows autonomous agriculture is now a practical reality,” said Peter Robinson, AgXeed.

This record signals a shift towards autonomous field operations as a scalable and efficient farming solution.

One might wonder, after seeing the AgBot in demo’s, at events, on videos, how is it to actually use? We want to share with you a few recent experiences of our customers, what they are doing with their AgBots, and most importantly, what else they can, and what else they do not have to do anymore because of the AgBot. What is it that customers think of the AgBot? 

Vlog – Koninklijke Maatschap de Wilhelminapolder – KMWP – Watch vlog!The AgBot T2 _{5 SERIES} has made its way to KMWP, which is a large arable farming company in the Netherlands.

The first night, they let the AgBot mow overnight, but they are still a bit nervous about letting it work at night, since they are not alert at that time. However, it performed its mowing task quite well! They like how you can change settings and adapt everything accordingly to how you want, which makes it also fun to work with the AgBot.

Besides, for their neighbouring dairy farmer, they used the AgBot to prepare the soil for sowing corn. After harvesting the potatoes in the field, the AgBot had to harrow the field before the corn could be sown. The main reason for this was to make sure the field wouldn’t get flooded in case it would rain.

Working round the clock – Watch video!

A customer talked about the AgBot ‘working round the clock’. Putting the AgBot to work and going to bed yourself, takes some getting used to.

NPPL’s latest project has kicked off in February 2025 and running for several weeks already! For this project, they collected a series of robots for farmers to try out. With a growing interest in automation, NPPL received a flood of applications from farmers eager to explore the potential of robotics in agriculture. One of which is farmer Marijn Vermuë who will be working with the AgBot T2 _{5 SERIES} for this year.

Marijn Vermuë of Vermuë Akkerbouw BV in Werkendam (the Netherlands) has been incorporating some precision farming practices for a few years now. Their 160 hectares need proper care and customization, since the toughness of the soil varies a lot within the pastures. Since 2020 he has been making task maps based on soil scans, to adjust the distance of planting potatoes based on the soil quality. Besides, he also bases the dosing of soil herbicides in his onion fields on the soil quality, which results in less herbicide usage and less damage to the onions.

This year, Vermuë will be using the AgBot for a variety of tasks. The first one of which was power harrowing the field meant for red onion cultivation. Marijn was enthusiastic, since the ‘incredibly low footprint’ of the AgBot gave him the opportunity to prepare the soil in the field this early already even though it was still slightly wet. An operation he would have skipped with a regular tractor because of this.

Stay tuned to see more of Marijn’s experience with the AgBot. On www.proeftuinprecisielandbouw.nl you can read the articles by NPPL, but of course we will share the information too!

Impressive performance of our AgXeed AgBot T2 _{5 SERIES} in Southern France, Camargue.

Our AgBot worked an Alpego FZ 4m power tiller in a wet rice field. In this operation, the tracks of our AgBot show their advantages – although the rice paddy was between about 30cm deep, the AgBot did hardly sink in.The tracks allow the AgBot to perform this task at low speeds of only 3-4km/h without sinking into the mud.

Thank you very much Claas Avignon for this excellent demo.