How much will gps steering on my drill tractor save me ?
- Thread starter Nuffy29
- Start date
- Location
- North yorks
Depends how good a job your doing without gps
Power Harrow Pilot
Member
- Location
- East Yorkshire
1st job, go and measure tramlines
Very few fields exactly fit a multiple of the drill width. If he is overlapping say 4" every time up the field, thats 600mm every tramline. In a 10 tramline field (if you have any that big) thats a breed and a half. It does add up, but its going to take a while to add up with a 2.5% overlap (100mm in 4m) Unless youre on liquid, or happen to create an extra tramline via drill overlap, the fert saving will be hardly measurable. Sprayer similar, unless very accurate auto shut off.
We do drill via gps, though couldnt justify it without using it for ridging 300ac of taty land as well.
FWIW I think fitting something like a teejet Matrix to your sprayer (assuming you do not already have auto shut off) will payback much quicker. I was more inaccurate than I first envisaged. Change from £3k, much less overlap, and much easier to use over a long day than switching lots of sections on and off.
We do drill via gps, though couldnt justify it without using it for ridging 300ac of taty land as well.
FWIW I think fitting something like a teejet Matrix to your sprayer (assuming you do not already have auto shut off) will payback much quicker. I was more inaccurate than I first envisaged. Change from £3k, much less overlap, and much easier to use over a long day than switching lots of sections on and off.
Steevo
Member
- Location
- Gloucestershire
Sayings in seed, spray, fert, fuel etc. aren't where the real savings are to be had.
The real savings are:
Being able to travel as fast as tractor allows, not as fast as you can accurately drive
Being able to therefore finish a field in daylight
or over a week being half a day ahead so you finish before the heavy rain storm is due.
Being able to work longer hours if you want as you can drill in the dark (helps with above)
Feeling happier and fresher at the end of whatever length day
Being able to watch the drill more so you spot problems sooner
The above reasons and more are those you only find out having had GPS and used it. That's why once they've had GPS people never go back.
The real savings are:
Being able to travel as fast as tractor allows, not as fast as you can accurately drive
Being able to therefore finish a field in daylight
or over a week being half a day ahead so you finish before the heavy rain storm is due.
Being able to work longer hours if you want as you can drill in the dark (helps with above)
Feeling happier and fresher at the end of whatever length day
Being able to watch the drill more so you spot problems sooner
The above reasons and more are those you only find out having had GPS and used it. That's why once they've had GPS people never go back.
only way to try put a number on it is go measure existing tramlines, see how much your overlapping and multiply that area over the farm for fuel, metal, fert, seed and spray, it will probably be reasonably significant even with a good drill driver
however the savings come in other ways, increased productivity because driving becomes less effort so you will get longer days out of your driver with less mistakes, more focus on the machine vs driving the tractor so often a better job gets done. - hard to put numbers on that though
Then there are savings like not needing marker arms on your drill if you get a good system (just saved me over £2000 on our last drill). being able to work in lands saving turning time and reducing hedland traffic etc, fixing tramlines across years to cut a subsoil pass etc
once you have it you won't want to be without it
however the savings come in other ways, increased productivity because driving becomes less effort so you will get longer days out of your driver with less mistakes, more focus on the machine vs driving the tractor so often a better job gets done. - hard to put numbers on that though
Then there are savings like not needing marker arms on your drill if you get a good system (just saved me over £2000 on our last drill). being able to work in lands saving turning time and reducing hedland traffic etc, fixing tramlines across years to cut a subsoil pass etc
once you have it you won't want to be without it
As above, you need to ascertain what overlap you have at the moment. Measuring tramline widths is only part of it - consider culitvations & harvesting too.
For an average operator you can be looking at 10% savings in terms of time, fuel, spares etc. Good operators will show less benefit & poor operators show much higher benefits.
Are tramline overlaps really wasted money? Does the extra seed, fertiliser & spray double dosing cost you money?? Ok, you'd be better not overlapping & crop scorch or lodging in the overlaps could be put to better use by optimising application rates over the wholoe field but I feel this is harder to really quantify.
Example - Heavy clay farm. 24m tramlines (actually 23.4m). The 375hp Quadtrac & 4.5m Simba Solo works in lands. Actually the Solo is narrower than that but that's not important now. Open up a land by driving up one tramline then coming back down the next one. Fill in to finish off, with the last run being about 1.2m wide. The overlap works out at 12% across the whole job! 12% savings means finishing with the Solo 5 days sooner. At £64/hour for the Quad, driver, Solo, fuel etc that's 50 hours potentialy saved £3200 so a 3 year payback on a £10k autosteering system on the summer Solo work alone.
The more expensive the pass the greater the savings from autosteer.
This thread has been running for 2 hrs 40 minutes & there has been no post from a well known East Anglian 1594 pilot.....
For an average operator you can be looking at 10% savings in terms of time, fuel, spares etc. Good operators will show less benefit & poor operators show much higher benefits.
Are tramline overlaps really wasted money? Does the extra seed, fertiliser & spray double dosing cost you money?? Ok, you'd be better not overlapping & crop scorch or lodging in the overlaps could be put to better use by optimising application rates over the wholoe field but I feel this is harder to really quantify.
Example - Heavy clay farm. 24m tramlines (actually 23.4m). The 375hp Quadtrac & 4.5m Simba Solo works in lands. Actually the Solo is narrower than that but that's not important now. Open up a land by driving up one tramline then coming back down the next one. Fill in to finish off, with the last run being about 1.2m wide. The overlap works out at 12% across the whole job! 12% savings means finishing with the Solo 5 days sooner. At £64/hour for the Quad, driver, Solo, fuel etc that's 50 hours potentialy saved £3200 so a 3 year payback on a £10k autosteering system on the summer Solo work alone.
The more expensive the pass the greater the savings from autosteer.
This thread has been running for 2 hrs 40 minutes & there has been no post from a well known East Anglian 1594 pilot.....
In all the years i have been using/selling and supporting Precision Farming equipment. Im yet to have a kit returned.....
That should say it all.
I often get customers say that they only need Egnos as the tractor is only doing cultivating/subsoiling.... However that operation is possibly the most fuel hungry of the year...
That should say it all.
I often get customers say that they only need Egnos as the tractor is only doing cultivating/subsoiling.... However that operation is possibly the most fuel hungry of the year...
John 1594
Member
- Location
- Cambridgeshire
Busy trying to get round the huge amount of contract drilling i seem to get every year
either im not charging enough or im simply just very good at my job with a very high attention to detail
No one can drive as accurately as GPS certainly not for 12hrs plus a day every day
Justifying it is another thing, it needs a decent acreage to start to stack up
Douglasmn
Member
I bought an autosteer kit last year. Probably way over the top and not needed on a 550 acre farm. Especially so with contractors having done the drilling this year. It cost 5k. Trimble unit on range point correction. Absolutely bullet straight every time, so good for what it costs. Perfectly straight and parallel lines, with bouts always matching up. Has it saved 5k so far in diesel and metal etc? Probably not. It's on an old tractor though. No climate control and no front axle suspension. Manual levers too. It all comes down to what you want to spend your money on, simple as that. I like seeing tidy fields with straight and parallel lines(and before anyone starts boasting about their own skills, the human eye just cannot go as straight as the auto steer), and no ugly sharp turns at the ends. Also, auto steer means less time spent on the tractor seat in the first place. As someone with no wish to spend their life in a tractor, this is also a big benefit of the system.
John 1594
Member
- Location
- Cambridgeshire
Its all about enjoyment....nothing like making a perfect job in a nice long field and everyone in the fen knows that it was me who drilled it, and it was my skill what made it look like that
you cant put a price on job satisfaction
you cant put a price on job satisfaction
- Location
- somerset
I went the whole hog last year .got tractor made self steer ready.and went full rtk. its totally changed my life. I drill about 1500 acres of maize a year.long hrs in short time. I now have time to drink cup of tea ,have something to eat wilst going along. also answer phone. before it wasgrab a drink now and then and eat occationaly. combi drilling is a dream . use it for absolutely everything .rolling, powerharrowing, spraying even sideloading maize with trailer(only on what I drilled) . yes im saving cash idont know how much ,but my life is so much better than it used to be. what price do you put on that!. god I wish it was around thirty years ago
- Location
- Devon
And if you go rtk route surely auto section is essential on fert spreaders and sprayers too because overlap on ends of runs and in short work would equate to as much if not more overlap than pass to pass overlap, well down here anyway!
John 1594
Member
- Location
- Cambridgeshire
Quite why you would want to spend 12hrs plus a day on something at this time of year is another question
We start at 7am, and finish around 5-6pm this time of year, unless it looks like another hour will get the field done, in which case i carry on
i suppose thats the downsides to having a brain and a social life, i have other things to do with my time besides sit on a tractor for 12hrs plus
also find it amusing that many lads round here with gps seem to work through their dinner break, but dont get paid for that extra half hour....whats the point. Just stop, have 5 mins and relax, sets you up again for the rest of the day then
theres more to life as they say
we don't do 12hrs a day at anything this time of year, were drilled up ex the millet land we were waiting for over a month ago, establishment was all over in no time this year, We are well on top of the job could probably deal with 50% more acres without getting silly, it would take longer without GPS and wouldn't be as good a job
I've spent the last month shooting things mostly !
John 1594
Member
- Location
- Cambridgeshire
You dont have late lifted sugar beet to deal with though, only finished the last of that yesterday
ive just had someone ask me to go drill some grass for them, told him he would be better waiting till spring, but he wants it done now....cant say as i think its a very good idea myself
we harvested 120ac millet and drilled wheat last week on wednesday / thursday
the drilling did involve a 9pm finish but only because the rain forecast beyond thurs night looked bad