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Agronomic Row Crops
Guidance Systems
Even with well-adjusted tools doing excellent work, driving a tractor to
cultivate hundreds of acres is a tedious job that demands uncommon powers
of concentration, alertness and quick response to occasional obstructions.
Guidance systems use mechanical, hydraulic and electronic methods to detect
cultivator movement in relation to the crop row, then move the tractor, the
hitch or the tool to restore the desired alignment. Adoption of guidance systems
is nearly routine on 12-row and larger equipment in the upper Midwest.
Benefits include relief of driver stress, closer cultivation to
the row, great precision on slop- ing fields—especially on contour
strips—and increased acreage covered due to faster speeds. (See
“Precision guidance technology can pay its
way)
Mechanical guidance systems use wheels or panels that follow
soil contours. These tracking devices physically hold the cultivator to the
location of an elevated soil berm (in beds or ridge-till rows) or furrow.
Electronic guidance controls take their cues from slender
wands or dragged furrow weights suspended from the toolbar. The wands run
along the soil surface near the base of crop plants, while furrow weights
run in row middles. A shaft connects these wands or weights to a switch box
on the toolbar. Sensors within the box detect shaft rotation when the cultivator
moves away from its centered alignment, then signal the hydraulic system to
make its compensating motion. Residue, protruding dirt clods or stiff weeds
can compromise accurate crop sensing.
More sophisticated systems use microprocessing computers and on-board diagnostics.
These allow the operator to vary the sensitivity and frequency of the system’s
response, and to monitor a digital or graphic readout of the tool’s alignment.
TIP: Automatic guidance systems of any type increase
wear on parallel linkage and other joints due to frequent re-centering
movements.
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