Dansk Landbrugsrådgivning

High accuracy steering - A revolution in agriculture

Hans Henrik PedersenDanish Agricultural Advisory Service

hhp@landscentret.dk

Danish Crop Production Seminar 18. January 2007, Herning, DK

Danish Agricultural Advisory ServiceNational Centre

Denmark

• Overlap 1 – 8 %• 160 tractors with auto steering - 10 cm • 40 tractors with auto steering - 2 cm• ≈ 0,7 % of full time farmers• 3 Farmers do CTF on 1.000 ha.

Danish Agricultural Advisory ServiceNational Centre

Australia

• 200+ farmers do CTF on 1.000.000 ha.• 200+ farmers consider CTF on 1.000.000 ha• 200+ tractors with 2 cm auto steering• 1.000+ tractors with less accurate auto steering• 20-70 % of farmers use auto steering

Danish Agricultural Advisory ServiceNational Centre

Measurements of accuracy- test procedure is under development

Danish Agricultural Advisory ServiceNational Centre

Accuracy after interruption of signals

Danish Agricultural Advisory ServiceNational Centre

-100

-50

0

50

100

150

200

250

-5 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35min. efter udfald

cm

JD dækket 5 min.

Fendt dækket 1 min.

time, min

Accuracy after interruption of signals

Danish Agricultural Advisory ServiceNational Centre

High accuracy requires own base

Danish Agricultural Advisory ServiceNational Centre

Networks with high accuracy corrections –used by surveyors

www.referencen.dk www.gpsnet.dk (Leica) (Trimble)

Will auto steering companies develop interfaces?

Danish Agricultural Advisory ServiceNational Centre

Random traffic is not sustainable

Danish Agricultural Advisory ServiceNational Centre

Controlled traffic farming- sustainable future farming

Danish Agricultural Advisory ServiceNational Centre

Controlled traffic farming- main decisions

• Working width

• Wheel space

• Position of tracks

Danish Agricultural Advisory ServiceNational Centre

Trials with controlled traffic farming

• Grain, Europe: -9 → 21 %(Chamen et.al. 1992)

• Grain, Australia: avg: 16 %(Tullberg et.al 2001)

• Energy used during tillage -70 → -37 %(Chamen et.al. 1992)

• Energy used in total: - 17 %(Dickson & Campbell 1990)

Danish Agricultural Advisory ServiceNational Centre

High accuracy steering of implements

AF Tracker, AutoFarm.

Danish Agricultural Advisory ServiceNational Centre

Automatic boom section control

TeeJet, Hardi, (AutoFarm)- at Agromek

Danish Agricultural Advisory ServiceNational Centre

Approximate prices

• Auto steering, satellite based corrections:

18.000 € + 1.000-1.500 €/yr

• Auto steering with base station for correction: 32.000 €

• Steering of implement: 15.000 €

• Automatic boom section control:

3.000 – 5.000 €

Danish Agricultural Advisory ServiceNational Centre

Costs and savings by autosteering- does not incl. benefits of CTF

Costs

1 %

2 %

3 %

Overlap byseeding

5%

0.0

20.0

40.0

60.0

80.0

100.0

120.0

140.0

160.0

180.0

200.0

0 200 400 600 800 1000

Ha

Eu

ro p

r. h

a

1 Auto steering system with satellite correction5 years depreciation

Savings: seed, pesticides, machinery costs and labour

Danish Agricultural Advisory ServiceNational Centre

Auto steering – start of an revolution in agriculture

Auto steering

Controlled traffic

Interrow fertilization

Interrow seeding

Interrow weeding

Machine control, e.g. auto boom

Single plant treatment

“Precise agriculture”Robots

“You don’t drive cars over flowerbeds... We’re driving much heavier machines over the soils we hope to produce crops from and it’s causing a lot of damage”. Jeff Tullberg