This year at Grass & Muck Grass-Guide will show one-button GPS guidance technology to help save farmers money. Grass-Guide is a system that guides farmers while spreading fertiliser or applying pesticides to help eliminate overlaps and missed areas, making the process more efficient.

Savings of up to 15% on fertiliser costs could be achieved using GPS as testing has found that the further an operator drives from a fixed reference point, such as a hedge, the higher the pass-to-pass inaccuracy and increased wastage occurs.

Sixty-5’s software development team is based in Belfast and the company is led by John Arrell, who has over 15 years’ experience in precision farming. John was increasingly frustrated that entry-level products on the market were aimed towards the arable and tillage sectors and grass-based farmers were expected to adopt technology not designed primarily for their use.

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With this in mind, John decided to build a team of dedicated people and develop their own system. Grass-Guide’s number one feature is its ease of use. Once the tractor operator enters the implement width, there is only one button to press and the software takes care of everything else.

Grass-Guide displays the coverage map, guidelines and predicted direction for the operator to follow, eliminating the need for either A-B lines or a light-bar. The system is built on an Android platform and is supplied with a seven-inch Samsung tablet. The guidance software itself is an app, which means it is seamlessly updated to ensure that the user always has the latest version installed.

Most reliable

Grass-Guide uses the latest NovAtel GPS/Glonass Agstar satellite receiver, which is globally regarded as the most reliable single-band receiver.

The NovAtel receiver is easily mounted via magnets and is supplied complete with a mounting plate should the tractor have a non-metal cab.

The tablet’s connection to the receiver is via bluetooth and a GPS output (NMEA) is also available to connect to modern implements.

Once the field operation has been completed, the as-applied treatment map is sent to a dedicated online cloud portal where it can be later viewed for management and traceability purposes.

Sixty-5 Technologies Ltd has received substantial support from Invest NI in order to create an additional 23 jobs in the near future. John Arrell said: “Over the next three years, we are aiming to substantially increase both turnover and export sales through developing new products and services and growing our technological capability.

“Our long-term goal is to accelerate sustainable agriculture through the provision of GPS, to ensure the farming industry optimises the best use of its land.’’

Following shortly will be Con-Trac, a simple-to-use solution for agricultural contractors utilising GPS to record operations, price jobs accurately, and share completed jobs with their customers.

Sixty-5 Technologies Limited,

Unit 5B Weavers Court Business Park,

Linfield Road, Belfast

Tel: 0044-(0)78 13905775

Email: j.arrell@sixty-5.com

To read the full Grass and Muck Magazine click here.