GPS-guided assisted steering• Improves accuracy (tillage, planting, spraying, fertilization)
• Reduces fuel, seed, herbicide, fertilizer costs
• Allows daylight accuracy during night operations, at faster speeds
• Allows the driver to focus on the implement
• Reduces driver stress, body aches and pains

If you want any of these benefits, then you should consider this satellite-driven technology, now entering its 10th year on the market. It’s all about making your equipment more precise and more cost-effective … and giving yourself a break from stress, too.

University researchers — and farmers who use assisted steering — have proven a consistent 5 to 10 percent reduction in overlap. And in situations like spraying where you try to follow globs of disappearing marker foam 30 to 45 ft. to the side of your tractor, you can imagine that the payback from assisted steering can be even higher.

Now, do the math. There’s 5 to 10 percent fuel savings for every operation (tillage, anhydrous/liquid fertilizer, preplant/preemergent herbicides, planting, etc.). There’s 5 to 10 percent reduced cost for inputs (fertilizer, herbicides, etc.). To help you ballpark your own savings, use the Guidance Calculator on the right-hand side of this page.

Reducing overlap is just one way that assisted steering makes a farming operation more efficient. Experienced users with field data maps find even greater savings with variable-rate fertilizer, strip-tillage, varied seeding rates and numerous other methods.

Content courtesy of Farm Industry News.