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J. P. Ag Services is a full-service farm supply company with two satellite locations in northwest Illinois. It has 16 employees. "Technology is the whole concept of my business," says John Paul, owner. "I'm truly a service provider. Our goal is to take the information we get off of yield monitors and soil tests to the next step." John Paul began using GPS in 1994 for soil samples, field boundaries and perimeters. He's kept up with changes, using cutting-edge technology for high-end service for customers. When New Holland introduced the DGPS HP IntelliSteer package option, John was ready to put it to work to improve accuracy on fall anhydrous applications. It would dovetail with his TJ450 and new 16-row, 40-foot DMI 5310 strip till applicator. The 450 horsepower tractor, strip till bar and IntelliSteer have very practical uses in their service area, which is split by the Rock River. The south side of the river has sandy loam soils and level fields. Most farms have row crops with center pivot irrigation. The north side of the river has clay hills and timber soils. Some hills have "Class D" slopes. "The north side is where the power is needed," he says. "We're running 40- to 60-foot tool bars, and we custom apply a lot of ammonia." Strip tillage has proven beneficial. It is becoming very common on both sides of the river. "We go from six-row planters to 36-row planters in this area, so I bought the 16-row strip till bar." IntelliSteer makes a good fit with strip till, he says. "To make this strip till bar work and match up properly with all the planter sizes, I felt I needed IntelliSteer. It can work with any planter, if we're accurate enough." Field demonstration One of the first applications for the precision farming automated steering system was a field day J. P. Ag Services held for customers and prospective customers on September 2004. About 30 farmers attended. After several passes, farmers checked the accuracy. The knives had run "right back down the same marks, pass after pass," says John. Flags were set beside the ends of the tool bar. Farmers watched the machine come back down through the flags, while the operator relaxed inside the cab. "The DGPS HP system is advertised at better than a 4-inch accuracy," says John. "In practice, we found we were running better than a 2-inch accuracy." Primary input comes from using GPS satellite signals for positioning data. (See Power- Manager Tips on page 3 for more information.) The steering system isn't totally hands-free, but it does eliminate the need to steer when the tractor is operating in straight lines in open fields. It reduces human error, such as overlaps and skips which can lead to under or over application of seed, fertilizers and pesticides.
"We were strip tilling at 8.5 mph and driving perfectly straight rows — that was impressive," he says. "On the flat, it is very, very accurate. You sit in there and just watch everything work. You're just not stressed out." Starting a large, square field at dusk and finishing it, perfectly, in the early morning hours became a practical option. The operator wasn't worried about accuracy, only unseen hazards or obstacles. If he knew the field to be empty and safe, he could start as the sun set. "It's just amazing how, once you set your field perimeters and get it going, it takes so much stress off you. It won't be nearly as difficult to operate 24-hours," John says. Terrain tests accuracy Of course, not every field John works on is flat. John has some very hilly land with slopes north of the Rock River. He couldn't resist giving the IntelliSteer a test for accuracy on this kind of terrain. "We did some vertical ripping on that farm, to see what would happen," he says. "Nobody was sure about the accuracy on the hills. Some said it wouldn't do contours, but we couldn't see where it was off more than three or four inches even up in the steep hills." The auto-steer unit is a "good blend" of technology with New Holland's TJ450 tractor, he adds. His operator now has three in-cab computer screens to monitor. One is the standard in-cab monitor for tractor systems; the second is for IntelliSteer; the third records data that goes into the company's field and crop production analysis, and can feed data back to the tractor for variable rate field operations. John appreciates the power and smoothness of the TJ450. He describes it as a convenient, user-friendly machine with sophistication and surprising power. In 2003, he recalls, the tractor was pulling a 29-foot tool bar with mole knives, plus the ammonia tank. The bar had 20 knives on 30-inch spacing, cutting about 9 inches deep. In the open field, it was operating at 8 to 9 mph. "Then it would go across the headlands and literally drop down to 4.5 mph — but we were bringing up 6-inch thick compacted areas where the grain cart had run. "It was just amazing (to see) how much compaction would take out of a tractor, but we never power-hopped. That was a load, and that tractor is a great tractor!" says John. |
