LEMKEN GmbH & Co. KG
German family-owned farm machinery maker since 1780 whose Steketee IC-Weeder AI uses per-row deep-learning cameras for automatic intra-row hoeing.
LEMKEN GmbH & Co. KG is a German, family-owned agricultural machinery manufacturer headquartered in Alpen, North Rhine-Westphalia. Founded in 1780 as a small blacksmith's shop, it brands itself The Agrovision Company and builds implements for soil cultivation, sowing and crop care, together with the iQblue digital agriculture range of terminals, operating systems and apps. The Irish Farmers Journal reported 2022 turnover of EUR 559 million, about 1,800 employees, production of roughly 15,000 machines a year and an export share of around 80%; the company lists 33 subsidiaries worldwide and is led by CEO Anthony van der Ley.
LEMKEN's robotics-relevant work sits in mechanical weed control. It acquired the Dutch hoeing specialist Steketee, including its Rumptstad soil cultivation division, and sells camera-guided hoes under the Steketee name. The range includes the EC-Weeder row-crop hoe; the EC-Steer parallel side-shift frame sold with the IC-Light camera system, usable with third-party hoes; the IC-Weeder, a camera-controlled hoe for automatic weed control by day and night; and the IC-Weeder AI, which removes weeds between and within the rows. Trade press describes the IC-Weeder AI as a 3 m automatic intra-row hoe with one shielded camera per row sending about 30 images per second to an on-board computer; a deep-learning model trained on hand-labelled sugar beet images identifies crop plants by colour, texture, shape, size and leaf position with stated recognition above 95%, and pneumatically controlled sickle-shaped knives hoe to within about 2 cm of each plant while a hydraulic parallel frame keeps the machine on the row. LEMKEN presents the machine as groundwork for fully automated driving systems.
In December 2022 LEMKEN took a holding in Track32, an AI and software company in Ede, Netherlands, which developed the IC-Weeder AI software; the two run joint projects on camera-controlled hoes and intelligent machines that robots could control. Steketee products are built in the south-west Netherlands, where a new factory in Dinteloord was planned to raise crop care output two- to threefold. LEMKEN also acquired the South African direct drill maker Equalizer and stopped making conventional sprayers in late 2020, shifting crop care towards band spraying (SprayHub, SprayKit) and mechanical weeding, including the Thulit harrow-hoe.
Primary type & automation activities this supplier delivers:
IC-Weeder AI
AI camera-controlled hoe that removes weeds between and within crop rows, including under high weed pressure.
IC-Weeder
Camera-controlled hoe for automatic weed control in day and night conditions.
EC-Steer with IC-Light
Parallel side-shift steering frame with IC-Light camera for EC-Weeder or third-party hoes.
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Contact LEMKEN GmbH & Co. KG
WEBSITE
https://lemken.com/PHONE
+49 2802 81-0HEADQUARTERS
Germany
Company Facts
Founded
1780
Primary Role
Manufacturer
Company Size
-
Primary Region
Europe
Annual Sales
-
Funding Stage
Bootstrapped / Self-funded
Funding Total
-
