Watch: TAMS helping to make the switch to GPS

For those who have availed of the TAMS II Tillage Capital Investment Scheme, it has contributed significantly to their business. In many cases, the grant aid facilitated the upgrading of existing machinery and marked the transition into precision agriculture.

Kildare-based potato and grain farmer Bart Maertens is an example of this.

Before the introduction of the grant, the only GPS equipment which Bart owned was a basic light bar guidance system.

Over the past two years, however, he has upgraded both his sprayer and his fertiliser spreader with the help of the €32,000 grand aid available under TAMS.

GPS Amazone sprayer

As the sprayer plays a vital role in potato and cereal production, Bart has a policy of changing the machine every 10 years.

As his previous Hardi sprayer was up for renewal back in 2017, applying for the TAMS grant was a simple choice.

After looking at several models such as John Deere and Knight, he settled on a trailed Amazone UK4200 special sprayer with 450l wash tank.

Operating a 3m seed drill, he opted for a sprayer width of 27m, up from his previous 24m working width.

The sprayer was GPS ready and Amazone also supplied the Amatron 3 control box and GPS receiver. The receiver uses the EGNOS satellite system which uses eight satellites to generate an accuracy of 10cm.

He opted for individual nozzle shut-off instead of an 11-section shut-off.

The 54 individual nozzle control allows him to easily shut off nozzles on headlands and corners to account for over laps in the seed drill.

“It’s been super accurate, we don’t see any overlapping anymore,” he says.

Under the Department of Agriculture’s reference costs, the cost of a trailed sprayer with GPS control is calculated by multiplying the capacity of the sprayer by 11.207 and adding 14,499.

Bogballe spreader

After seeing how accurate the sprayer was, in 2018 he opted to upgrade the fertiliser spreader to a GPS-equipped model. Previously, he ran a Lely Centerliner for almost 20 years which had no GPS capabilities. He upgraded to a M35W Bogballe spreader with 3t capacity.

Self-calibrating and equipped with weigh cells, the spreader’s GPS section control is run off a Topcon GPS receiver. The remainder of the TAMS grant covered around 35% of the cost of the new spreader. With two people spreading, the spreader is capable of spreading up to 300ac per day or 50t.

Under the Department of Agriculture’s reference costs, the cost of a mounted spreader with GPS control is calculated by multiplying the capacity of the spreader (in litres) by 1.06 and adding 17,600.

He has also recently upgraded his sowing tractor which is now capable of running on full RTK autosteer with an accuracy of 2cm, although this wasn’t through TAMS.

TAMS grant aid

“I definitely think we’re making savings with the GPS fertiliser spreader in the ins, outs and corners of fields,” Bart says.

He feels that the TAMS grant aid has helped modernise the farm. While he may have changed the spreader and sprayer regardless of the grant, he is less than sure if he would have opted to include GPS technology.