Precision Pays

Trimble recently introduced its latest in-cab, touch screen CFX-750 display. The 8-inch, full-color display allows farmers to choose the specific guidance, steering and precision agriculture capabilities that best fit their farm’s particular needs. The farmer can upgrade the CFX-750 display as business needs change, including adding GLONASS capabilities, or adding section and rate control for crop inputs such as seed, chemicals and fertilizer.

When the built-in, dual-frequency receiver is upgraded to GLONASS, it provides the option to nearly double the number of available satellites from which to receive satellite signals.

For precision planting operations, the CFX-750 display is compatible with Trimble’s Field-IQ crop input control system and Tru Count clutches and can perform section control on up to 48 sections. Add rate control with the Field-IQ system to save costs and increase yields while also keeping records of what was applied. Additionally, operators can increase visibility from the cab by using the two live video feeds on the CFX-750 display to view the implement being pulled behind the vehicle.

“The Trimble CFX-750 display features the industry-leading Trimble Maxwell 6 chip that tracks up to 44 satellites simultaneously including GLONASS,” said Erik Arvesen, vice president and general manager for Trimble’s Agriculture Division. “This is a great high-performance, entry-level platform that can be upgraded to the Field-IQ section and rate control system as the farmer’s needs grow.”

The CFX-750 display is affordably priced starting at US$2,995 MSRP and is expected to be available in September 2010. Contact a local Trimble dealer at www.trimble.com/locator for more information.

German company RapidEye, the only geospatial solutions provider to own and operate a constellation of five identical Earth Observation satellites, announced today that over a period of just three months, 95% of the contiguous United States has been imaged. Almost 80% of this imagery was captured by the RapidEye satellites with less than ten percent cloud cover.

The campaign, which began May 1 and was completed on July 31, produced an abundance of imagery with many areas covered multiple times. Not only the United States was covered; 97% of Mexico was collected and almost 60% of Canada. Many areas were imaged more than once over this three month span and totaled 17 Million square kilometers of North America. All of this imagery is currently available for purchase in the RapidEye Library.

The company also has released a success story with the French precision farming company S2Bvisio about how RapidEye has delivered nitrogen fertilization maps for canola and wheat fields for the customer. You will find details about this project at http://www.rapideye.de/upload/documents/References/Customer_Reference_S2B_08_06_2009_ENG.pdf.

RapidEye images the Earth in unparalleled quantities and will continue to make its satellite imagery available through its Library, which can be searched either through a local distributor or directly through its Customer Service department. To find a distributor visit the RapidEye website at www.rapideye.de/distributors. Additionally, a selection of RapidEye products can be searched for, purchased and immediately downloaded through the RapidEye Geodata Kiosk at www.geodatakiosk.com.

Precision ag was highlighted at the Nutrient Use Efficiency Expo during the recent Conservation in Action Tour by a company called Geosys. Company representative Don Lampker says they do a lot with satellite imagery and have a product called FieldInSite which helps farmers map their fields so they can make decisions on which areas are most productive. They can then create nutrient management plans for variable rate application systems.

It’s all about the more efficient use of nitrogen so Don says there may be some areas of a field where they actually apply more nitrogen while in other areas it will be reduced if it’s not getting used efficiently.

Listen to an interview with Don from the CTIC tour here: Don Lampker Interview

Conservation In Action Tour 2010 Photo Album

Coverage of the Conservation In Action Tour was made possible by and the

Research shows a lightbar can pay for itself in three years on only 300 acres. It can be done with a GPS receiver that receives the free WAAS correction signal that functions within 12-inch accuracy.

This was just one precision farming economic message presented by Matt Darr, Iowa State University ag engineer, during a field day at its Northern Research Farm field day, according to a story in AgriNews.

“This is suitable for non-critical guidance, including tillage, spraying and seeding/drilling,” Darr said. “They are also used for autoswath systems on sprayers, but accuracy will decline in larger fields.”

Investing in a $2,000 light bar for a sprayer can cut chemical costs by 4 to 8 percent per year, Darr said. In areas with rugged terrain, the savings have been as much as 17 percent.

Dual frequency correction offers advances over single frequency correction and provides pass-to-pass accuracy within 4-inches or better, Darr said. This works well for precise auto steering for planting and for planter section control. It requires a yearly subscription that can range from $800 to $1,500.

Real Time Kenematic, or RTK, correction is the most accurate GPS correction because it uses a privately-owned reference station located close to the GPS receiver. RTK can provide one-inch pass-to-pass accuracy and is the only GPS correction that provides year-to-year position stability. RTK allows controlled traffic, strip tillage/fertilization/planting and extremely precise autosteering. Darr said that although RTK receiver costs have come down, the investment is still high from a cost and complexity standpoint.

RTK networks maintained by groups of implement dealers are available for a subscription fee. The cost is similar to a dual frequency subscription.

Read the story to learn more about more network choices and their value.

AutoFarm has released a new video featuring its ParaDyme GPS Precision Farming system.

The new five and one half minute video highlights ParaDyme as the world’s first totally integrated precision farming system, with the capability of being installed on any “color” or brand of farm equipment from tractors, combines, sprayers and spreaders to swathers.

AutoFarm ParaDyme is the single system solution to all facets of precision farming: planter control, application control, yield monitoring, data logging and management, plus hands-free GPS steering via WAAS, EGNOS, OmniSTAR HP/XP, and RTK. It is also GLONASS ready. The ParaDyme System offers a choice of three displays: AutoFarm INTEGRA, AutoFarm EDGE and AutoFarm Viper Pro. It is also compatible with the AutoFarm OnTrac2 GPS Assisted Steering System running with ParaDyme/INTEGRA or ParaDyme/EDGE.

With its unique factory-integrated wireless, ParaDyme offers a Remote Real-Time Service connection to the dealer in addition to optional RTK ReadyConnect that provides RTK correction without a base station. A newly enabled WiFi function is another expansion of an already feature-packed solution to virtually everything precision ag.

Producers came to learn at the recent Precision Ag Expo field days held recently in North Dakota. Numerous questions, according to a story in Farm & Ranch Guide, aimed at gathering facts about zone maps, satellite imagery and variable rate precision farming.

Kelly Sharpe, of GK Technology, Inc., in Halstad, Minn., said his company creates variable rate mapping, taking an image from a field and creating zones based off of this input image.

Zones are soil sampled and fertilizing and seeding maps are created. The producer receives a prescription that he can input into his GPS system to apply fertilizer and seed at the correct rates while traveling across the field.

“Economics has forced us to make more money off the same acres,” Sharpe said. “There’s a lot of variability in every field caused by topography and soil types. Maps can show you where there might be more leaching of nitrogen or different soil types requiring different treatments.”

“You could put 30 pounds of nitrogen on the top of your hills and 90 pounds on the bottom of your valleys and it might not be accurate,” he said. Zone mapping is the solution to putting on the right amounts, and it can be done “right from the cab,” Sharpe said.

Check out this piece to learn more about the benefits of satellite imagery and variable rate manure application.

WiFi in your tractor cab? The AutoFarm ParaDyme GPS system is the first to offer remote loading of software. And it can remotely connect to your dealer for help.

“AutoFarm is the only GPS steering provider currently offering this capability,” says John Bressler, Sr. Marketing Manager, AutoFarm. “The ParaDyme looks like a WiFi ‘hotspot’ to the user’s PC and once connected the software is quickly and easily uploaded.”

The WiFi connectivity to upload software, now enabled on version 1.2 of the ParaDyme Software allows users to remotely load software without the customary auxiliary cables or USB devices.

The ParaDyme System is the industry’s first single system solution to all facets of precision farming: planter control, application control, yield monitoring, data logging and management, plus hands-free GPS steering via WAAS, EGNOS, OmniSTAR HP/XP, and RTK. It is also GLONASS ready. With its unique factory-integrated wireless, ParaDyme offers a Remote Real-Time Service connection to the dealer in addition to optional RTK ReadyConnect that provides RTK correction without a base station. The newly enabled WiFi function is another expansion of an already feature-packed solution to virtually everything precision ag.

For more information on the AutoFarm ParaDyme system and WiFi capability, Remote Service, etc., visit www.gpsfarm.com.

Readers of PrecisionPays.com know the value of how satellites and accompanying technology has totally changed farming. And as a journalist who has covered the precision agriculture industry before it’s birth, I’m jealous of some technologies that I want for my car–like auto steering.

While that technology is a ways off into the future, Gearlog.com posted a recent piece on how unscrambled GPS has helped consumers. It listed a few benefits we’ll see before self-driving cars.

More efficient hybrids. A hybrid car is good for half a mile to two miles in EV (electric vehicle – only) mode but the car typically keeps the hybrid battery topped up as soon as it gets a chance. With a smarter GPS receiver that talks to the car’s navigation system and to the charging system, the GPS could advise the car it’s about to head down a long hill in a mile, but only after two hills. The car would use the electric motor on the hills, or whatever works best for efficiency, and arrive at the start of the downhill with the hybrid battery nearly depleted, then use the downhill to recharge the battery. The result would be improved economy.

Predictive swiveling headlamps. On higher-end cars, the headlamps swivel lift and right when you turn the wheel. With more accurate GPS, the car would start to turn the headlamps a second or two before the road curves. That adds a small measure of safety. Plus, on a dark country road at night, sometimes it’s hard to recognize if you’re seeing the road marking curve sharply to the right, or if that’s an angled white rail fence 20 yards off the highway. The headlamps could help show you the way.

Ultra-accurate speedometer. A GPS system also calculates your speed. Car speedometers are often inaccurate by a couple miles per hour, sometimes to insure that even if you use a slightly different diameter tire, you’re never going faster than the speedometer indicates. Some drivers like the insurance factor of a mechanical speedometer that reads high by a couple mph. Others may want to know that when the speedometer shows you’re doing 68 mph, you’re doing 68, not 65, 66, or 69. So you could use GPS to apply a correction factor to your speedometer. Or not. No doubt all these features would be ones you could enable or disable, at your discretion.

Read more details here.

Tomorrow, May 21, the first of 12 ‘next generation’ GPS satellites will head into space.

Boeing announced that the first of 12 Global Positioning System (GPS) IIF navigation spacecraft that the company is building for the U.S. Air Force has successfully completed prelaunch testing. The satellite, GPS IIF-1, is scheduled for a May 20 launch aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta IV rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

GPS is a space-based, worldwide navigation system providing users with highly accurate, three-dimensional position, navigation and timing information 24 hours a day in all weather conditions. The 12 GPS IIF satellites feature stronger and more precise signals that will enhance the services that support U.S. warfighters, their allies, and civilian GPS users around the world.

“These next-generation satellites provide improved accuracy through advanced atomic clocks; a more jam-resistant military signal and a longer design life than earlier GPS satellites; and a new civil signal that benefits aviation safety and search-and-rescue efforts,” said Craig Cooning, vice president and general manager, Boeing Space and Intelligence Systems. “GPS IIF is the culmination of our deep experience with 39 successful satellites from previous missions, representing more than 30 years of teamwork with the Air Force.”

“GPS is used by nearly a billion people worldwide for everything from farming and aviation to public safety, disaster relief and recreation, not to mention its military purpose of providing precision navigation and timing to combat forces,” said Air Force Col. David Madden, GPS Wing Commander. “GPS IIF will increase the signal power, precision and capacity of the system, and form the core of the GPS constellation for years to come.”

As the first spacecraft in the GPS IIF series, GPS IIF-1 underwent stringent and comprehensive testing following shipment to the launch site in February. Tests included verification of key satellite functions as well as end-to-end system testing to verify operations between the satellite and the Boeing-built ground control segment at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado. Commands were sent from Schriever to GPS IIF-1 at Cape Canaveral to turn on payloads, reprogram processors, and verify interoperability with user receivers and equipment, both civil and military.

In April, the Air Force and Boeing team completed a comprehensive series of prelaunch exercises. These included a mission dress rehearsal and two integrated crew exercises that involved all GPS IIF launch and missions operations crews, from controllers at Schriever to space vehicle engineers and range radar operators at Cape Canaveral to tracking stations around the world.

University of North Dakota students and faculty designed and built the ISSAC camera to watch growing crops from space beginning in 2011.

“ISSAC is a space-related research project that will result in the delivery of direct benefits from space to the general public,” said Doug Olsen, ISSAC project manager. “The ISSAC project is in the midst of developing an upgrade to its camera sensor, which is expected to be launched in April 2011. It will resume operations during the 2011 growing season.”

ISSAC is designed to take frequent images, in visible and infrared light, of vegetated areas on the Earth, principally of growing crops, rangeland, grasslands, forests, and wetlands in the northern Great Plains and Rocky Mountain regions of the United States. Images will be delivered within two days directly to requesting farmers, ranchers, foresters, natural resource managers and tribal officials to help improve their environmental stewardship of the land. Images will also be shared with educators for classroom use.

The system allows users to select specific geographical areas of interest over which to request collection of imagery in both red and near-infrared bandpasses, and at medium-high spatial resolution. Farmers using variable-rate application and other precision agriculture techniques will be able to dynamically delineate management zones as the crop vegetation canopy changes during the growing season; this can result in more effective use of fertilizer and other chemical inputs and reduce negative environmental effects.

“The UND interdisciplinary effort that has produced this camera is a remarkable story,” said UND President Robert O. Kelley. “Faculty and students from several colleges and centers on campus have produced an instrument that will analyze the composition of agricultural and other natural resources on the surface of the earth from the International Space Station.”

“The consolidation of multiple technologies into a single instrument will add tremendous economic value to the agricultural industry in North Dakota and around the world,” Kelley said. “UND and NASA have forged a very productive partnership in this initiative.”

ISSAC is operated from the Science Operations Center (SOC) on the UND campus, staffed by students from across the campus, including from the John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences and the School of Engineering and Mines. From the SOC, students will send commands to ISSAC to take images and transmit them to SOC, where they’ll be processed and delivered to end users. Images captured by the camera will be made available to the public through UMAC’s Web page (see http://www.umac.org/).

I have not met a grower involved in precision agriculture that doesn’t love, no crave, more information on the subject. To this end, check out the very good Precision Ag Blog, compiled and written by various extension pros in the Alabama Cooperative Extension System.

Recent blog posts talk about variable rate (VR) seeding, VR calibration, data management, data collection with cellular modems, the value of on-the-go nitrogen sensors, firmware upgrades and much more.

The blog site also categorizes posts into topics to help you sort for exactly the info you seek.

As planters continue to roll across the Midwest, most farmers are thinking about what’s next. One component of precision farming you may want to try is the use of crop sensing. Why? Because this is the future that will help overcome field variability–from helping create optimum field management zones to monitoring crops so growers can take action before yield-robbing stress occurs.

One good overview of this science, published in 2003 by USDA-ARS scientists from across the country, will help you grasp the realties and benefits that can be achieved. And the technology has dramatically improved since this was written.

One independent agronomic guru who is a favorite of mine (and I’ve quoted many over the years in farm magazine articles) in Tom McGraw, owner of Midwest Independent Soil Samplers (MISS). Tom calls a spade a spade, and offers some excellent advice, which he gives in his newsletter, on their website, and especially to customers.

Bottom line is you should consider examining one field, perhaps your toughest most variable ground, to see what you can learn and improve upon with this sensing technology. Talk to your local retailer to understand their capabilities, or contact one of the four MISS locations.

Agriculture.com, one of the longest running ag websites powered by Successful Farming, has a social network for young and beginning farmers called Farmers For The Future. One of the recent topics centered around precision farming talks about a move into RTK and the CORS network.

The challenge is dealing with all ages and different colors of equipment. Sam asks…We have three green combines 1 newer the 2nd is 10-11 years old and the other is a dinosaur and the newer one being the only one with yield mapping through waas signal using original brown box from JD ( never right ). Next we have 2 Planting tractors both have 20/20 seed sense systems from precision no GPS. Sprayer we have a XLRD 1000 Pull Type pulled by a JD 4430 with a INSight and an EZ-Guide 500 waas signal. Spreader truck we have a Insight along with EZ- Guide Plus. Now I must say that it looks like we just put a down payment on a 06 Apache with auto steer by Raven. Also a new red combine is probably coming this fall 8120 Case and we are talking about buying a new corn planter also.. we put a lot of tile in we bought a tile plow.. No GPS also we have a 8530 JD autosteer ready for doing a lot of tillage and side dressing corn with anhydrous. 9520 T John Deere does a good majority of the tillage and also runs the tile plow. Now you see my situation figure out a plan for that to move into RTK.

Several growers have responded here.  Take a visit and weigh in with your advice.

For US growers in nine states, Trimble launches its new VRS Now Ag service to deliver RTK sub-inch positioning via cellular communications–without the need for a local base station.

Growers in Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi and Nebraska can access VRS Now Ag. Additionally, European growers can receive correction services in Great Britain, Ireland, Germany, Czech Republic and Estonia. As with corrections supplied by conventional Real-Time Kinematic (RTK) radio towers, Trimble VRS network corrections provide sub-inch repeatable Global Positioning System (GPS) accuracy for precision farming operations such as tillage, planting, spraying and field preparation.

The Trimble VRS solution uses proprietary software to create correction models for regions covered by the network. The VRS service can provide growers with instant access to high-accuracy RTK positioning without the need for a local base station. VRS corrections are valuable in areas with natural obstructions such as trees and hilly terrain due to the fact that corrections are obtained by a cellular modem, rather than through the line-of-sight signals provided by an RTK tower.

Trimble pioneered RTK in the early 1990s as a means of delivering high-accuracy GPS positioning. Today, there are more than 750 million acres covered by Trimble agriculture RTK base stations. The VRS Now Ag service was developed to deliver high-accuracy positioning via cellular communications and provides more than 400 million acres of sub-inch accuracy.

“We are very pleased to provide Trimble VRS Now Ag service to nine U.S. states and five European countries,” said Erik Arvesen, vice president and general manager for Trimble’s Agriculture Division. “VRS Now Ag service provides an additional high-accuracy correction option for farmers who require reliable sub-inch positioning for their crucial field operations. Trimble VRS Now is fully supported and dedicated to the success of farmer field operations.”

A 12-month subscription will cost $1,200 or $1,500, depending on whether you want GPS only or access to GNSS. For more information visit www.trimble.com/agriculture/TrimbleVRSNowAg.aspx or contact your local Trimble dealer at www.trimble.com/locator.

During the recent Galileo Appreciation Days held in Brussels, the high degree of accuracy and precision that’s possible with EGNOS, Galileo and other GNSS technologies were celebrated, as reported by the European GNSS Supervisory Authority.

“EGNOS is already a success story in the agricultural sector,” said Aguilera. “It already has 50% market share, which is expected to reach 70% by 2010. The ultimate result will be increasing yields, conservation of resources and materials, and lower costs. The benefits are there, the EGNOS signal is already being exploited by farmers, and it is available free of charge.”

The Galileo Application Days ‘High Precision’ session highlighted a number of GNSS applications already being used in the agriculture sector.

Michael Quinckhardt of Claas Agrosystems outlined how his company is exploiting advanced GNSS-based applications. “Precision farming includes automatic steering for tractors and monitoring of all our machines,” he explained. “We can help farmers to know where their machines are and what they are doing at any given moment.”

Tracking and yield analysis can also help to optimise the use of fertilisers. “One can understand that different fields across a wide area will differ in terms of various qualities and in their abilities to support crops,” said Quinckhardt, “But the fact is there is a degree of variability in terms of soil quality even within a single field.”

By recording information from harvesters about what the soil is producing from one patch to the next within a field, and matching that information with precise GNSS-based location information, farmers can pinpoint very accurately where they need to apply more fertiliser and where they can save money by applying less.

Rob Kiernan of Leica Geosystems discussed the three phases of action in agriculture: planting, crop protection and harvest. “Maximising production in agriculture is all about doing the right thing at the right time in the right place,” he said. “Systems like Galileo and EGNOS tell us about place with a high degree of accuracy throughout the production cycle, and this is revolutionising the way we work.”

For more on this story…