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Why does a farmer need GPS to plow a field ? >These automated systems have become critical to modern farming (often called “precision agriculture”), with farme

by jmclnx 2y ago

Why does a farmer need GPS to plow a field ? >These automated systems have become critical to modern farming (often called “precision agriculture”), with farmers using increasingly automated tractors to plant crops in perfectly straight lines with uniform spacing. Precision agriculture has greatly increased the yield of farms I guess this is why, but is the increased yield really worth all the issues I hear about these tractors ?

bluGill 2y ago
I work for John Deere, though I don't speak for the company. Every time I tell a farmer I work with the displays they tell me that they won't plant without the GPS. They will sometimes drive the combine by hand, but there is enough additional profit in GPS planting that nobody will drive a planter by hand. Corn does is very picky about how close it is planted to other plants - too close or too far apart will reduce yields and the GPS can optimize that by enough to be worth it. Even in the combine case, if there is bad storm damage they won't drive by hand as the GPS can find the rows and thus harvest a lot more crop. Every couple years there will be a field storm damaged bad enough that it would be a total loss if they had to drive the combine by hand, but the GPS can find the rows and so there isn't even an insurance claim (crop insurance insures you will get your average yields over the previous 10 year, so if you have a total loss crop that brings your average yields way down for the next 10 years which means a future disaster crop gets bad payout)
stoolpigeon 2y ago
I had a discussion with an engineer from John Deer, I'm not a farmer and don't have direct experience with it so I am taking his word but he told me in most cases the person in the tractor is just there to monitor what's going on for safety. I imagine this frees up people for other work if someone maybe less qualified can be in the tractor, or just takes the load off so they can work longer, allow them to do more in less time, etc.
Waterluvian 2y ago
I think modern farming is heavily about optimization.
HelloMcFly 2y ago
I'm here to argue that anything that concentrates farming and decreases required land use (and thus habitat destruction for wildlife) seems like a good thing. I'm sure there's plenty of externalities and second-order effects to consider, but I'm just a guy who loves to hear the birds sing.
- jonah 2y ago
  That would be wonderful but how often do you hear about farmland being fallowed and restored to its native vegetation vs. being turned into a subdivision full of Mc Mansions or a giant distribution center...
  - bluGill 2y ago
    It is called CRP and happens all the time.
- dopylitty 2y ago
  I tend to agree but there’s a sort of induced demand effect with this kind of thing. Instead of producing the same amount but more efficiently it’s used as an excuse to produce and consume even more. The same happens with cloud computing. Now companies that used to have to pay for physical servers so rationed their use can have huge amounts of compute just sitting idle (not obviously idle because there’s so much steady state computing for logs, EDR, monitoring etc) which then causes the cloud providers to trash more land and consume more energy and water for their data centers.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
SteveNuts 2y ago
Nowadays the sprayers with 150’ booms use GPS to turn off individual spray nozzles if the tractor drives over a spot that’s already been sprayed. It’s more about efficiency than yield
jncfhnb 2y ago
Yes it is worth it
Astronaut3315 2y ago
They use centimeter accurate GPS for per-row logged performance data and autosteering on guidance lines. That data’s used for planning, data analysis and to keep the sprayer from trampling over planted crop later in the year. Older systems follow lines in the field but newer ones also turn at the ends. It allows less skilled operators to do critical operations in the field.
- goda90 2y ago
  Fields are a set size and shape. They could probably accomplish this with location beacons at the corners of the field if GPS were disrupted long term.
  - kotaKat 2y ago
    > Schwarz says organic farms like his rely heavily on precision farming features, because rows of crops are planted very tightly together to prevent weeds from growing in the spaces between plants. “We used to have markers that would scratch a line in the ground that you could then use to kind of drive by eye,” he said. “Now, we plant so tight in terms of how much the tractor can go side to side and how much the equipment can go side to side that if we aren't absolutely perfect, it just doesn't work. You just physically can’t drive that straight [without guidance]. If you're sitting up there in a tractor seat, you can't steer fast enough or well enough to not kill the crop because we're so tight on clearances.” Not at the tolerances they're able to drive those hulking beasts under automation, they can't.
    - allannienhuis 2y ago
      I think the suggestion was to use a type of beacon that the automation could lock into for positioning, just replacing the GPS part of the location service, not the driving part. I imagine that would be technically possible, but not worth anyone's time for such an exceptional circumstance.
BurningFrog 2y ago
What are the those issues?
throwaway984393 2y ago
[dead]
porlw 2y ago
Another reason is that farming machinery compacts the soil. Techniques such as min-till and no-till aim to minimise soil disturbance (to reduce emissions from deep ploughing and improve soil fertility), but to achieve this you really need to make sure the equipment accurately follows the same path through a field every time, so that the area affected by compaction is mimimised. Not a farmer, I learned this from the youtube channel Harry's Farm.
SoftTalker 2y ago
> is the increased yield really worth all the issues I hear about these tractors It probably is. If you can increase yield by a few percent that could be the difference between a profitable crop or not. Corn is a commodity, and the market is absolutely cuthroat. That's why farming has changed from something a family could do to something that requires a huge amount of land and expensive equipment to realize the economies that are required to do it profitably.

by jmclnx 2y ago

bluGill 2y ago

I work for John Deere, though I don't speak for the company. Every time I tell a farmer I work with the displays they tell me that they won't plant without the GPS. They will sometimes drive the combine by hand, but there is enough additional profit in GPS planting that nobody will drive a planter by hand. Corn does is very picky about how close it is planted to other plants - too close or too far apart will reduce yields and the GPS can optimize that by enough to be worth it. Even in the combine case, if there is bad storm damage they won't drive by hand as the GPS can find the rows and thus harvest a lot more crop. Every couple years there will be a field storm damaged bad enough that it would be a total loss if they had to drive the combine by hand, but the GPS can find the rows and so there isn't even an insurance claim (crop insurance insures you will get your average yields over the previous 10 year, so if you have a total loss crop that brings your average yields way down for the next 10 years which means a future disaster crop gets bad payout)

stoolpigeon 2y ago

I had a discussion with an engineer from John Deer, I'm not a farmer and don't have direct experience with it so I am taking his word but he told me in most cases the person in the tractor is just there to monitor what's going on for safety. I imagine this frees up people for other work if someone maybe less qualified can be in the tractor, or just takes the load off so they can work longer, allow them to do more in less time, etc.

Waterluvian 2y ago

I think modern farming is heavily about optimization.

HelloMcFly 2y ago

I'm here to argue that anything that concentrates farming and decreases required land use (and thus habitat destruction for wildlife) seems like a good thing. I'm sure there's plenty of externalities and second-order effects to consider, but I'm just a guy who loves to hear the birds sing.

jonah 2y ago
That would be wonderful but how often do you hear about farmland being fallowed and restored to its native vegetation vs. being turned into a subdivision full of Mc Mansions or a giant distribution center...
- bluGill 2y ago
  It is called CRP and happens all the time.
dopylitty 2y ago
I tend to agree but there’s a sort of induced demand effect with this kind of thing. Instead of producing the same amount but more efficiently it’s used as an excuse to produce and consume even more. The same happens with cloud computing. Now companies that used to have to pay for physical servers so rationed their use can have huge amounts of compute just sitting idle (not obviously idle because there’s so much steady state computing for logs, EDR, monitoring etc) which then causes the cloud providers to trash more land and consume more energy and water for their data centers.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

SteveNuts 2y ago

Nowadays the sprayers with 150’ booms use GPS to turn off individual spray nozzles if the tractor drives over a spot that’s already been sprayed. It’s more about efficiency than yield

jncfhnb 2y ago

Yes it is worth it

Astronaut3315 2y ago

They use centimeter accurate GPS for per-row logged performance data and autosteering on guidance lines. That data’s used for planning, data analysis and to keep the sprayer from trampling over planted crop later in the year. Older systems follow lines in the field but newer ones also turn at the ends. It allows less skilled operators to do critical operations in the field.

goda90 2y ago
Fields are a set size and shape. They could probably accomplish this with location beacons at the corners of the field if GPS were disrupted long term.
- kotaKat 2y ago
  > Schwarz says organic farms like his rely heavily on precision farming features, because rows of crops are planted very tightly together to prevent weeds from growing in the spaces between plants. “We used to have markers that would scratch a line in the ground that you could then use to kind of drive by eye,” he said. “Now, we plant so tight in terms of how much the tractor can go side to side and how much the equipment can go side to side that if we aren't absolutely perfect, it just doesn't work. You just physically can’t drive that straight [without guidance]. If you're sitting up there in a tractor seat, you can't steer fast enough or well enough to not kill the crop because we're so tight on clearances.” Not at the tolerances they're able to drive those hulking beasts under automation, they can't.
  - allannienhuis 2y ago
    I think the suggestion was to use a type of beacon that the automation could lock into for positioning, just replacing the GPS part of the location service, not the driving part. I imagine that would be technically possible, but not worth anyone's time for such an exceptional circumstance.

BurningFrog 2y ago

What are the those issues?

throwaway984393 2y ago

[dead]

porlw 2y ago

Another reason is that farming machinery compacts the soil. Techniques such as min-till and no-till aim to minimise soil disturbance (to reduce emissions from deep ploughing and improve soil fertility), but to achieve this you really need to make sure the equipment accurately follows the same path through a field every time, so that the area affected by compaction is mimimised. Not a farmer, I learned this from the youtube channel Harry's Farm.

SoftTalker 2y ago

> is the increased yield really worth all the issues I hear about these tractors It probably is. If you can increase yield by a few percent that could be the difference between a profitable crop or not. Corn is a commodity, and the market is absolutely cuthroat. That's why farming has changed from something a family could do to something that requires a huge amount of land and expensive equipment to realize the economies that are required to do it profitably.