GrainSense in Spain: Smart solutions for cooperatives and research institutions
Portable grain analysis has been available in the Spanish market for the last three years, as GrainSense has been working with their distributor Agrotronik Analizadores, S.L. since 2020.
Agrotronik was established in 2011 by three partners. Their market area is all of Spain and they are a market leader in agricultural analysis solutions with a long history and experience in the field. In addition to importing agricultural analytical products, the company also manufactures in Spain a sampler device, Sampletronik. They are focused on the grain, flour, and feed sectors, and they work a bit also in biofuels or green energy.
Agrotronik’s co-owner and sales manager José Miguel Hernando has over 20 years of experience from the field of agricultural technology. He has noticed during his career that protein analysis has become more and more common in the Spanish market these past years. “All big producers already have protein analyzers, moisture meters and such. But there are many who can’t afford an expensive benchtop analyzer, where GrainSense’s solution comes handy.”
In the Spanish market, cooperatives and research centers have found the GrainSense Handheld Analyzer very useful in measuring protein on-the-go and in real-time. The portability allows users to take measurements in multiple location and the feedback is instant, which is important to both the cooperatives and the research centers.
There are no similar solutions in the Spanish market, and according to Mr. Hernando, the GrainSense solution is the best portable solution in the market. As the economic situation is challenging for many this year, a new kind of solution is very welcome – it’s both affordable and has similar performance compared to many industry leaders with their bulky and expensive benchtop analyzers.
“In agriculture every year is different from the past year or previous years. Last year we were suffering a very dry season, not only in Spain, but the whole Europe. Our customers need instrumentation to control the high quality of their products. I’ve never lived two equal years, but agriculture always survives,” Mr. Hernando explains.
Quick and easy testing in lab environment – Case Agricultura y Ensayo
One of the happy users of the GrainSense solution is Agrotronik’s customer Agricultura y Ensayo (AYE), a Spanish agricultural services company. They have laboratory for testing, where they use the GrainSense Analyzer for measuring e.g. wheat and barley, and they have a very successful history with rapeseed analysis.
One of the departments at Agricultura y Ensayo is specialized in seed studies, offering e.g. field studies, harvest trials and microplots with different kind of crops. Their services include also performance analysis with many different parameters, e.g. protein and oil content, that they can now offer their customers using the GrainSense Handheld Analysis.
During the summer season, the AYE team harvests daily taking around 400–500 samples with a specialized harvester that automatically analyses basic parameters such as yield, moisture, and weight. They then take the samples to their lab to perform required measurements on other parameters that often vary depending on the R&D project or customer needs. Using the GrainSense Handheld Analyzer is the perfect solution for them to use in this lab testing, as it’s easy and quick to use, extremely reliable, and doesn’t require extra manipulation of the sample (e.g. with chemicals). Earlier AYE used a subcontractor lab to carry out some of these measurements, so using the GrainSense solution has brought them benefits in cost and efficiency.
“It has been very useful for us. We now have the possibility to perform a huge quantity of analysis in a short period of time, and the return on investment of the equipment has been very short. We are very happy with the GrainSense solution,” Lab Manager Raul Castaño from Agricultura y Ensayo states.