“The Miedema Structural 4000 allows us to plant carefree, even with long and pre sprouted seed potatoes.”

Dewulf visited PP Coenen, a company in Germany’s Rhineland that, besides a considerable own potato area, is also active in contract work. We listened to the young, ambitious successor.

Long varieties & pre‑sprouted seed potatoes

“In 2025, the topic of finding suitable staff remains ever relevant. That is why we focus chiefly on making our operation more efficient. Growing larger is no longer our primary goal,” begins Clemens Coenen (27). “In that context, choosing the Miedema Structural 4000 has proven to be the best decision we could make, because that planter is exceptionally suited for our type of seed potato. We work a lot with long varieties and pre‑sprouted seed potatoes, which turned out to be quite a challenge for neat planting. While cup planters sometimes struggle in such cases, the MS 4000 belt planter maintains constant row spacing and planting depth. At first, I was skeptical, because years ago as a driver of a machine of another manufacturer I had seen fluctuating row spacings and planting depths. We simply don’t have that problem with this Structural system.”

Uniform seed potatoes & greater capacity

“Long tubers used to mean that at least four people had to ride along to refill the cups - that’s now behind us,” continues Coenen. “The only important precondition is that we have uniform seed potatoes in the machine’s bunker. These days that is readily available and, if necessary, we calibrate ourselves, possibly via the receiving hopper, into two size classes. We already did that with cup planters, but with a belt planter it is even more crucial. You see the result in the quality at harvest: with uniform seed potatoes combined with Structural technology, the quality of the end product is clearly better. And we also have up to 25 percent more capacity: higher working speed without compromising on tuber positioning quality, plus nicely finished ridges.”

Dealer & service

“Thanks to dealer Gravendyck, who assured us that the machine could be exactly rebuilt to our specifications, we can also plant directly from boxes. Thus we are able to place two full and two empty boxes on the machine. That gives real operational strength: running a full working day without downtime for logistics is priceless in those cases.
“And one more crucial point: the machine itself operates well and continues to do so. And if anything does go wrong, the dealer is ready with the correct Dewulf parts. Since they took over the service and parts point in our region, parts availability and response time are as they should be. That gives a certain peace of mind during the season. I am truly very satisfied, the machine is brilliant, and we are certainly considering acquiring a second unit in the future.”