Precision levelling with the Fontana mini-dozer

Fontana Srl, a company based in Crescentino (Vercelli) that for many years has been engaged in the production of machines for tilling soil and harvesting horticultural crops (green beans), is relaunching its core business in the soil levelling machine segment. It already offers a range of laser- or GPS-controlled towed levellers, with working widths from 1.50 to 8 metres and for tractors from 15 to 700 Hp, as well as various types of scraper. A new small self-propelled grader (mini-dozer) will be presented at EIMA International. This is a blade, front-mounted on a power wheelbarrow, that has the ability to raise and lower, tilt sideways and swivel left and right (like a grader). All movements are controlled electronically, via joysticks on consoles. The control by means of a laser or GPS system allows the blade to work in a fully automatic manner, carrying out precision work. The machine's small size allows it to create clearings in confined spaces (such as greenhouses, vegetable gardens or small plots, terracing, berms, etc.), where other similar but larger machines would not reach. The new mini-dozer is therefore more manoeuvrable and easier to use.

The mini-dozer was awarded as Technical Innovation of EIMA International 2022. "Its compact size," reads the citation, "makes it suitable, for example, for greenhouses and allows otherwise manual operations to be mechanised. It also has technologies that are usually found in larger machines, such as the double-slope laser system or GPS." The expected advantages include the lower environmental impact, since a perfectly levelled ground means savings in water used for irrigation.