I just got back from a seed technology day, and heard rumblings of seed corn costing $300+ per bag for 2009. They had a good explaination for this, as the technology is becoming better and better, keeping us from needing to spray for certain insects, etc., but it made me think right away about how much additional money the SeedCommand system on my planter is going to save me next year! HTS now has over 150 planters running with this technology, and I have heard over and over again, 7% savings on average. I have heard the range from 5% to 15%.
That being said, lets do some math: Assuming a 2000 acre farmer plants half his acres to corn, that would be over $100,000 in seed just for the corn. That means that by saving 7% you would save $7,000 per year just on corn seed. This doesn't even count the increase in yield we have seen by not overplanting the end rows. To me, this is a no brainer. This is technology we can't afford to farm without.
Showing posts with label planter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label planter. Show all posts
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Monday, May 12, 2008
Is this thing planting?
Over the past few weeks as the planters started rolling, I have had several questions about when the planter starts and stops using the autoswath control from Ag Leader, so I thought I would explain how to adjust this.
The Ag Leader Insight uses look ahead settings. This is simply a time measurement so that we can trigger an event and allow for the time it takes the machine to react. There are two different settings here - turn on look ahead and turn off look ahead. This is because it takes less time to turn the planter off than it does to turn it back on using the air clutches.
Here is the basics of it - we want the planter to start at point X, and we know that it mechanically takes about one second to turn on the planter for it to start planting, we need to send the signal one second before we get to point X. The same goes for turning off the planter.
These numbers on the Ag Leader system are set by default at 1.1 seconds for the turn on, and .4 seconds for the turn off. To adjust, move them only .1 seconds at a time, and make sure you dig to see where the seed is dropping. To make the planter start dropping seed sooner, increase the turn on look ahead. To make the planter stop dropping seed sooner, increase the turn off look ahead.
The Ag Leader Insight uses look ahead settings. This is simply a time measurement so that we can trigger an event and allow for the time it takes the machine to react. There are two different settings here - turn on look ahead and turn off look ahead. This is because it takes less time to turn the planter off than it does to turn it back on using the air clutches.
Here is the basics of it - we want the planter to start at point X, and we know that it mechanically takes about one second to turn on the planter for it to start planting, we need to send the signal one second before we get to point X. The same goes for turning off the planter.
These numbers on the Ag Leader system are set by default at 1.1 seconds for the turn on, and .4 seconds for the turn off. To adjust, move them only .1 seconds at a time, and make sure you dig to see where the seed is dropping. To make the planter start dropping seed sooner, increase the turn on look ahead. To make the planter stop dropping seed sooner, increase the turn off look ahead.
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