Take home message

I live on a 1000 Ha family farm in the Lower North of South Australia one hour north of Adelaide. The farm is undulating with highly variable soil types and the rainfall is between 425mm and 500mm.

The crops grown are

• Durum and Bread Wheat
• Malting Barley
• Canola
• Fiesta Faba Beans
• Kaspa Field Peas.

Main types and costs of guidance systems

1. Permanent Wheel Tracks - $5 to $10/Ha
2. Marker Arms - $1000 to $10000
3. Visual GPS Guidance (Light Bar/Screen) - $5000 to $25000
4. Sub-metre Autosteer (10-20cm Pass to Pass) - $15000 to $40000
5. 2cm Autosteer - $45000 to $70000

Controlled traffic - Matching operating widths

• Started on my farm by matching tractor tracks with boomspray to spray fungicides on beans.
• Used DGPS guidance first in 2002 when purchasing a KEE ZYNX controller to an Omnilite 132 5Hz DGPS receiver.
• With the purchase of a new airseeder I matched all in crop machinery to track on 2.2m wheel spacings with the airseeder 1/3 the width of the boomspray and urea boom.

KEE Trimble - RTK Autosteer on JD 8200 tractor

• +/- 2cm Repeatable Accuracy.
• Base Station on the tallest most central hill on the farm. Powered by Solar Panels and Deep Cell Batteries.
• DGPS Receiver (Dual Frequency).
• Bigfoot – three Gyros three Accelerometers that keep the YAW ROLL and PITCH adjustments in order. Guaranteed to keep you straight on uneven rolling ground.
• Uses two Trimble radios to communicate between the base station and the tractor.
• Accurate to 10km.

Autosteer in controlled traffic - The opportunities

1. Canopy Management

• Later N Applications
• Later Fungicides
• Use of Growth Regulators.

2. Night Spraying

• Group A (Targa® Select®)
• Group B (Midas® OnDuty® Ally® Hussar® Atlantis®)
  OK but Ardrossan 2002 Targa® Midas® frost decreases efficacy @ night.
• Group L (Sprayseed®)
• Group M (Roundup Max®)
• Group C (Lexone®)
  OK at night although symptoms of herbicide action may be delayed
• Group F (Sniper® Brodal®)
• Group I (24-D amine)
  OK at night
• Group G (Goal® Affinity®)
  Bit of a mystery? Not recommended at night due to reduced efficacy in some cases under good spraying conditions

3. Ability to sow and spray when wet

4. Ability to sow in-between stubbles

• Better establishment of Canola and Clover
• Two to five times less root disease on the inner-row
• Efficacy of soil applied herbicides
• Better stubble handling.

5. Wide Row Cropping

• Shielded spraying with Roundup and Sprayseed®
• Band Spraying fungicides and expensive herbicides
• Large yield increases in WA Lupins
• 0-20% yield decrease in Beans when on 1m paired rows

6. Complimentary to Precision Agriculture

7. Easier driving - Less fatigue

Controlled Traffic - The Benefits

• Decreasing crop inputs by 5 to 8%.
• Decreasing diesel usage by up to 25%
• Increasing crop yields by 5 to 15%
• Grain quality increases by having better soil structure.

The Economics - On my farm

• Annual Costs = $16.75/Ha
• Input Savings (8%) = $19.85/Ha
• More Yield (5%) = $38.00/Ha
• Total Gain = $41.10/Ha
  
  The Costs will get cheaper and more economical.

Plan for your future!

Varieties displaying this symbol beside them are protected under the Plant Breeders Rights Act 1994.