Farmers are touting auto-steer technology among the best of precision farming applications. The Indiana Prairie Farmer reports that the farmers reporters spoke with during farm management tour stops stressed auto-steer capabilities as priceless.
In fact, statements like “I wouldn’t let you take it away from me” flowed freely during tour interviews. Besides the tangible benefits, including saving from overlap and spraying more precisely, the benefit that it’s not possible to put a dollar sign on came up quite often.
That’s how freeing yourself from doing the driving and concentrating on rows or markers leaves you much fresher late in the day. How you measure not being so tired in terms of dollars and cents is a factor even ag economists haven’t conquered yet, but farmers insist it’s real and that it’s important. And the older the farmer running it, like a parent or grandparent, the more important that factor becomes, they note…
It was auto-steering that kept coming back as the most favorite technology at the tour. Some folks still use the free WAAS signal, but those serious about using it for precise operations, like planting, are either using a satellite subscription signal or obtaining an RTK signal. Precision Partners, a technology firm located near Flat Rock, now ahs a series of stations mounted on various towers that broadcast RTK signals. For a fee they allow customers to pick up the signal and use it for guidance.
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