There is a move amongst the major tractor manufacturers to boast more of a tractor’s digital technology than even its power or torque ratings, which, on occasion, appear to be merely incidentals relegated to the spec sheet.
This belief that the digital capability of a tractor is of greater concern than its mechanical performance may well apply in certain markets, but here in the Ireland that would appear an overconfident claim.
Yet, there is one manufacturer which is determined to not only bring its customers to the digital water, but also to help overcome their reluctance to drink.
The company concerned is John Deere, which has recognised the fact that to realise the potential of the systems they install, they have to not only offer them to the customer but also bring that customer to understand and utilise the capabilities of its latest models.
A big part of that is to guide them through the initial stage of utilisation and Templetuohy Farm Machinery (TFM) has taken the bull by the horns in setting up a distinct division within the company to guide farmers through the maze of systems available.
The venture goes by the name of Agri-Care, and although it is devoted to promoting John Deere’s own equipment and software, it is fully independent of the manufacturer as Deere is a strong believer in encouraging its dealers to work on their own initiative rather than lean on a parent company.
Division of tasks
To help simplify matters, machinery-focussed software can be thought of as coming in two distinct flavours: Onboard and off board.
That is, the systems that control the tractor and implement combination, and those that support the management of the farm through data collection and integration with office-based management software such as Gatekeeper.
James Butler, of TFM, is keen to point out that the great strength of the Deere software is that it is all produced in-house; there are no third parties involved, what you get is purely the work of the company’s own internal teams.
This is, he goes on to say, in contrast to the majority of manufacturers which are reliant on buying in the systems from other software houses that have their own ideas as to how to go about the job – ideas that may not coincide with the tractor’s designers way of thinking.
John Deere itself is not adverse to purchasing-in expertise, although it tends to buy the company rather than its product – the acquisition of Blue Rivers Technology in 2017 being a move to reinforce its digital competence.
TFM means business
There is also a palpable sense of purpose about John Deere’s approach. When coming across it for the first time there is of course a strong element of confusion, but beneath that, the structure is one of progressing into the IT jungle rather than jumping in at the deep end.
The entry point for nearly everyone is the adoption of satellite guidance as it is the pinpointing of a tractor’s exact location which supports the whole plethora of digital systems now available.
The degree of accuracy to which this needs to be known will depend on various factors and centimetre precision, repeatable over the decades, will not be required by everyone, and even it is, the technology to achieve it is coming down in price.
With a guidance system installed, and whether it relies on GPS, GLONASS or Galileo, a whole array of possibilities arise, yet the overall aim is to achieve control of inputs and promote soil health through a management policy which James refers to as site-specific farming.
The scheme relies on four basic tenets which he labels as the four R’s: The right input, applied at the right rate, to the right place, at the right time.
This has always underpinned good crop husbandry, but now there is the ability to ensure that it happens far more accurately and effectively than before.
Satellites and precision farming
Up until the advent of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), judging inputs was often a combination of rule-of-thumb guesswork combined with the application of local knowledge – a methodology which should not be totally displaced by precision agriculture.
What GNSS has done is bring a far greater degree of accuracy to the situation with the planning of inputs being dependent on hard data rather than subjective judgements, although the weather will always delight in messing up the most carefully constructed of strategies.
The information now available to farmers upon which to base decisions is dependent on scientific gathering of information via two main routes, soil sampling and crop yield, and it is upon these that application rates may be planned.
Building confidence
There is a temptation to immediately grasp at the power of GNSS and invent all sorts of new ways in which it can be used, yet that is trying to run before learning to walk, so the sequence of baby steps usually entails getting a tractor to run in parallel and equally spaced lines as a first step.
That having been achieved, the next step would be to reduce overlap and avoid contamination of waterways and hedges and here section control can be achieved through the delineation of the headland.
The next stage is to control the rate at which it is applied with reference to how much is needed in any one particular point.
This is especially useful with fertiliser, which is the input that has seen the greatest focus over the past year, and with slurry now firmly being seen as a resource rather than a waste product, its role has grown considerably and its application is now subject to the same view.
Charting field productivity
However, being able to control the rate of application is only one side of the equation. There is also the need to decide what that rate should be at any given location and to do this there needs to be a prescription map.
At this point the off-board systems play a role in creating a picture of a field’s fertility, mainly through the recording of yields as the harvester passes through a crop, although other parameters such as weed infestation may come to play a more important role in future.
However, yield is only part of the equation. Soil sampling also plays an important function in creating a map populated with the information needed to decide upon inputs.
Finalising a plan of action may at first appear an enormous task, but there is a sense that as farmers adapt to the possibilities, it will become just another part of the farming process; a tool to help ease the burden rather than a burden in itself.
Proactive with precision farming
With all this data streaming in from various sources the temptation for many is to simply ignore it rather than try to grapple with what appears to be a tsunami of complexities. Yet TFM, in conjunction with Deere, is forging ahead in explaining and guiding rather than imposing digital technology.
As yet, no other brand has taken this initiative and so it is to the company’s credit that it is proactive in bringing precision farming into Ireland, while other tractor manufacturers seem to be only talking about it.