PRECISION farming is moving to a new plateau with farmers wanting to know how to get more out of their equipment.
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According to Boekeman Machinery Precision Farming team manager, Peter Crippen, there was little point explaining GPS to farmers because they already knew the fundamentals.
"With increasing adoption of more sophisticated precision equipment, farmers are keen to learn more about the advanced features of equipment such as the Case IH and Trimble EZ-Guide and FM1000 displays," he said.
Recently the four Boekeman Machinery branches hosted more than 80 farmers at a special information evening to further their knowledge and understanding of the Case IH and Trimble products.
"We found that everybody already knew what GPS was so there was little point in doing another session on the subject," Peter said. "What our clients wanted to know was how to get more out of their equipment."
The evenings were designed to help local farmers use some of the more advanced features of their equipment.
This included:
Saving and recalling settings when moving their equipment from one machine to another.
Naming and re-calling farms and paddocks.
Deleting coverage or paddocks from the display.
Re-using A-B Lines already laid in a paddock.
Moving farms, paddocks and A-B Lines from one display to another.
Downloading and viewing event summary reports.
Downloading paddock information and viewing it using various software options on an office PC.
Using software to name farms and paddocks in the office before using the display.
Entering secure RTK Keys and changing RTK base station ID's.
"We avoided the Powerpoint overkill and instead demonstrated the advanced features live using the EZ-Guide 500, FM1000 and a laptop," Peter said. "Clients were encouraged to ask questions and we were able to answer their questions using the demonstrations."
Each client was given a customised support manual created by Boekeman Machinery. The manuals are simple to follow and provide a handy reference for less-frequently used features.
The Boekeman Machinery website (www.boekemans.com.au) was discussed and the clients were shown where on the website to find extensive information on the RTK network as well as downloads for the supported products EZ-Guide 250, EZ-Guide 500 and FM1000 as well as freely available software utilities to make life a little easier.
"We have tried to focus the precision farming section of the website on providing as much relevant information as possible for our customers in a way that is simple to find," Peter said.
Boekeman Machinery also announced at the meeting it was now a dealer for the WeedSeeker and GreenSeeker products manufactured by Trimble and distributed in Australia by CropOptics.
WeedSeeker uses Trimble optic sensors to sense living plants and fast-fire solenoids to turn on a spray nozzle as it passes over them. A WeedSeeker system is ideal for summer spraying where
research has shown that up to 80 per cent of herbicide is sprayed onto bare ground.
It also has many other weed eradication applications such as roadways and roaded catchments. WeedSeeker can be added to an existing sprayer or built as an independent unit which, according to Peter, is an ideal way to use an unused spray rig.
GreenSeeker uses optical sensor technology to measure a crop's nitrogen levels, varying the application of the prescribed nitrogen requirements as you spray.
It is retro-fitted to the sprayer and communicates directly with most rate controllers.
The GreenSeeker will predict the crop's yield potential using the agronomic vegetative index (NDVI) and can be installed to collect data during other farming operations.
p More information: www.boekemans.com.au
