Interesting JD Specialty Tractor

[Cyclone Jake]

Accuracy with RTK is one inch. See charts in my previous posts.

While JD only lists one inch accuracy, RTK has the ability to get to sub-inch accuracy horizontally (1 cm), and vertically (2 cm).

 

[Cyclone Jake]

Most farmers over 2000 acres own a self propelled these days but the deeres never really were that popular here..The rogator is always the popular one.
Although these are newer larger models pictured on this thread there are plenty of 4000 acre farms running these !

The RoGator is made by AgChem who is owned by AGCO and located in Jackson, MN. They also make the TerraGator spreaders. My personal favorite is the Hagie with the sprayer bar in the front. They go up to 1600 gallons and you can remove the sprayer bar and add other attachments including an automatic detasseller.

http://www.hagie.com

 

[Cyclone Jake]

DW's cousin has one of those GPS units & they can move it to different machines. Apparently they can download topographical features so if, for instance, the area is too alkaline the sprayers know to shut off. When doing thousands of acres the savings in diesel fuel, fertilizer, seed from not over spraying can save big $$$. Apparently you can purchase different levels of accuracy. He said at the highest level when they plant the rows 8" apart, they can come back next year and split that and put a new seeding right down the middle.

Its actually a bit more inclusive than that. The company I work for makes precision planting equipment that has the capability to be run with the GPS technology. The farmer takes the control unit, places it in his tractor, and it can automatically shut off individual rows if going over waterways, and vary the seeding rate using a hydraulic drive depending on condition. They take the same unit into their sprayer to control the spraying, and use the same unit in the combine. The yield monitors in the combine track and store the yield data in the unit which can be later analyzed. They can then adjust seed populations and fertilizer requirements for the different areas of the fields in the spring and summer to improve yields in the lower yield areas of the field. It is really very impressive and is still fairly young technology. The advances over the next few years should be very great.