Ag tech is all the buzz at the moment, every second conference now rolls it out as a theme, and rightly so, it’s the future.

We have been quietly going about implementing precision farming using the latest technology across our operation, and reading about the recent Irish Farmers Journal Ag Tech conference got me thinking about our own systems.

Our first foray into the autoguide market was a retrofit Trimble FMX on the 716 Fendt, which was an incredible piece of kit when we first got it three years ago.

With a 2cm accuracy, an ability to autosteer at very slow speeds (not common across all systems), curve lines, a top class display and good dealer back up made it a no brainer.

Putting our beds down on laser straight lines exactly 1.8m or 2m apart gave immediate yield benefits on root crops, as we no longer had beds pinching each other and then being wide on the other side. Other benefits included the ability to ridge up ground on an every other run basis, halving the time spent ridging, but still maintaining uniformity. The look of laser-straight beds as a benefit goes without saying.

The Trimble FMX in Julian Hughes’s tractor

The next generation of that system for us arrives today on a new Fendt 828, which has a fully integrated RTK autoguide system.

Having had demo machines out with the integrated system on the ProfiPlus display, the system is a step up from the retro fit in terms of usability and tidiness in the cab.

With the two Fendts on RTK autoguide, we are looking at an orbital unit to put on some of the older tractors giving us RTK accuracy with a system that can be moved between tractors.

To pull all the systems together and start to capture the data these GPS systems are producing, we have been speaking with Trimble Vantage about adding the web-based telemetry system, which will monitor the machines remotely and start to fire back key data on the machine outputs.

This will hopefully tie in with the Trimble mapping software we are already using for mapping all our fields, using either the desk-based maps or going in field with the Trimble Nomad and mapping out the fields, firing it back to the desktop and recording.

A common them throughout all of the above is Trimble.

We looked at some of the other manufacturers and TopCon were a very real alternative, but Trimble just got ahead of them because of the AGCO ties they have already.

Having all our precision technology with Trimble will hopefully allow our common pool of data to be more usable in the future, where we will not only get a return on the hardware in terms of steering and mapping, but also on the software in terms of historical records, yield recording, machine output analysis and telemetry.

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