 Welcome back to our precision ag in the southeast course with me again is my young friend Dr John Fulton our alpha imminent scholar and not to pick on you too much John precision ag You know, you don't remember all this stuff. You're not as old-goat like I am But I remember back before roundup ready technology and back before precision planners and all this stuff the first time I saw a Field planted a field of corn emerging that had been planted with one of these new planners I couldn't believe it. It was incredible The precision and looking at this picture about how straight we can make rows across long fields I can't I can't write. I have to have lined paper to write. All right to be Tell us about GPS based guidance systems well No doubt about it when we talk about guidance systems and In the we're talking today about GPS or GNS based guidance systems about Essentially the ability of that machine to drive itself while the operator sits sits in the cab It just has grown over the last 15 or 20 years We talk about guidance today as air conditioning in these cabs I mean all the machinery today that's rolling off of the lines even even some of these smaller utility tractors today are starting to have guidance as a standard piece Integrated into the into the machine and so it's I don't want to say a necessity But it's just it's just common today and a lot of folks. It's just it's used and And There's no decisions. I'm using it today. So we're going to talk about guidance systems mark. That's kind of our next thing From a farmer's perspective. It is probably the most tangible benefit to the farm when we think about precision egg It's probably the number one technology adopted in precision egg today if you got guidance, you know You're really there's some things that you can do with that and good So going back we talk about this in the introduction on average and this is on average in Alabama based on Work we did about six seven years ago with some students looking at what is our average savings? Or you can look at the reduction of overlap. That's about ten percent That's that's a pretty big deal today mark when we think about not only the cost of inputs We think about just time in a field I mean we have a short window to get done and if I can save ten percent You know, that's a that's a big deal. So that's what we're going to focus on is is this guidance technology When we think about just some basics for minimizing overlaps We're getting that overlap down to a very small area Most of the research would tell you on average We were about ten percent and we can get that down to one or two percent or less per se in most cases And we can consistently do that if you think back in our days when we were small kids mark working on the tractors You know 12 15 hours out cultivating and I can tell you I made a few mistakes myself But you know, this is it gives you the ability to be accurate over time and go down the Same path time and time again And so when we start looking at inputs just the idea of getting our inputs out there where we want them Accurately and feeling confident about that. That's what guidance is really starting to afford all of our farmers here in Alabama and in the U.S John you remember coffee shop talk when you got tired and you was planting those last rows and they're doing You had to look at it for a year People people rag you about that for a long time and now You get tired. It's easier. It's an easier job Absolutely and safer and now we talk about who has the straightest rows and It's a Technology that'll quickly pay for itself and you know most the most the folks will tell you, you know It's it's it's already paid for itself in terms of that quality of life. We mentioned earlier We can do things and this is from John Deere work at night very accurately We don't have to make guesstimates when we're coming up to headlin the returns the technology the displays that like behind us They'll give you a heads up. Hey, you're coming to headlin. It's time to turn Most these GPS guidance systems today. You do have to still turn the machine But once you turn and get a line back up you hit a button and it's it's taking off and doing the work for you But you can do things at night, you know We talk a lot a lot in the south about Conservation tillage or no till and trying to get biomass to generate some organic matter You know the ability to go out and plant that field accurately and even if I had the road markers You know how hard it'd be just to follow it You know and so you know when we talk about some of these Practices that we really want to promote in the south to improve our soil till or soil organic matter and Really have an impact on yields You don't have to worry about that today Really this this slide should say what do we use it for and it's it's like everything today Yes, you know you talked about having the navigation in your car You got navigation on your phone and in all these machines like I mentioned if you're buying a new machine It's it's pretty much standard On that machine you might have to purchase the GPS receiver. You might have to upgrade Your display, but it's it's already there and it's for the for the most part a fairly cheap investment to get that Working on your particular machine So we're going to come back to this But I think the real two things is most of our guys in Alabama have gone from the light bar system To where really I'm driving the machine And it's just telling you where you should drive based on feedback off the screen To more of what we call it automated guidance And and so the automated guidance is the machine will drive itself without you having the input continuous input Things into the computer per se but it drives itself. So those are the two different ones We still see a lot of light bars used in spraying and some of those type of field operations Pretty cheap way to get guidance and help you out and make sure that you're not overlapping or you know Where you have sprayed or applied chicken litter here in Alabama those type of things. It's it's a great asset. So So anyways when we think about benefits, it's it's all over the place But anyways, the big thing I talk about guidance systems today is you're reducing your overlap and in most cases Eliminating skips because how often mark would go out and if we got rose we can follow rose But if you're out in pasture or in conventional tilt filled and you're trying to get things done You got to go fill up coming back to that same spot and question yourself Where was I you can't really see some of the your ruts or your your tire tracks Guidance will bring you back to that and so there's allows you to maintain straight or parallel passes Very accurately. I don't have to use flags today Like I used to to mark plots or mark where I stopped and want to come back to that The operator, you know, we hear this oftentimes, you know, I'm planting, you know My planners, you know, I've doubled my planner size in last eight years from 12 to 24 What I I can focus on making sure that planners at peak performance all the time versus trying to focus on Driving the tractor pulling it. So really allows them to focus on the money aspect of what's going on out there in the field And another thing that that's really unique and I really appreciate about our Alabama farmers is trying to Innovate farm practices, you know strip cropping to try different things out that say what's going to work best for me It just this is an enabling technology to do things so much easier than we ever thought about today and And you know, we use it on our research farms as you know mark and in some cases, we don't even mark out plots anymore I mean you just all that's internal to the displays like you see Surrounded here this morning you can go out and pre-plan what you're going to do whether that's your rates or Trying to split up your plots you go out and it's just so much easier today and I don't have to get out with manpower and Figure all that out before hand and mark it off with flags and stuff We're just a lot of innovating things that you can use with this type of technology today John early in my career Pre-precision ag I'd get calls pretty regular as well come out What's wrong with my crop and if it's streaking there'd be a you know three rows or there'd be a streak through the field and It was meant fertilizer application or crop protection That that didn't get applied there absolutely or that got double applied and and killed a couple of rows What's wrong? Well if it's streaking through the field, that's an application here and Go from there and that's that's the nice thing about some of the screens here Whether it's the Raven or the new John Deere or the ag leader, you know, it builds or paints That coverage map for you on the screen and you know exactly where you've already been in the field And so you're not going back and I better go back and double-check or as you say We just skip in a part of the field and all of a sudden you got some weed pressure that you didn't expect And you're having to deal with and it just those that guess work is is really over when we talk about guiding systems So you young guys don't even remember a cockaburr But boy you'd see a streak of cockaburrs through the field and if you missed Your crop protection you didn't have soybeans or cotton. You had cockaburrs. It was just solid And and this this is really helpful and We need to keep moving in that direction So so we're talking, you know, how do these things work and we're just going through very simply how how these Guidance systems work. We call it you basically have to do a little bit of setup Okay within the display And one of the things that you have to say is what's going to be your swath with so if I'm out planting that might be You know 20 foot 30 foot 40 foot whatever size your planter is if you're doing fertilizer that might be 50 60 70 80 foot you you enter that in what's your pass-to-pass Or swath with And then essentially all these we've really condensed down to there's kind of two options either set an a B point as they call it or a b line which you need two points a start and an end Okay, or the other nice thing is is if you want to run at a particular angle So as an example if I've planted a field and all of a sudden I need to do some tillage due to compaction I want to run at a 45 or 30 degree angle. I can use to azimuths So I can set an a point and I can set an angle So a lot of cases as an example like down at the research farm We want to be parallel with the field boundary a lot of times. That's a road or some some Attribute out there. We'll set then go out and know what that angle that road's running or Driveway and we set that azimuth to be perpendicular or parallel or perpendicular for doing the ends to that and so a start point And an angle if you got two machines running in the field You get them both running at the same angle and let them meet up in the middle That's impressive So those are just kind of two two methods to a B line and then a point by azimuths Which is popular with some folks because they want to run at a particular angle defined angle out in the field So there's also this is just courtesy of tremble. There's a lot of different patterns that you can Select you can do headlamps. You can do, you know, if you got an obstacle You can run around, you know, drive around that obstacle and in the bottom left, you'll notice every subsequent Will take in a in an account that obstacle spraying operation would be an example I might not do that in planning because I want my rows to be straighter for when I come back with my harvester It would be straight. I've got pivots So either a pivot selection in a lot of these they'll call it or spiral and that can be done in a couple different ways You can just spiral in or out Or you can just maintain a specified width and just pick up turn around and keep going in a circle So a lot of opportunities to use different field patterns within these Guidance systems it really depends on your operation your field conditions and what's present out there But really gives you the capacity to do a lot of different things and really look at the efficiency And that's what we always encourage the people all of a sudden by that azimuth Function I can look at well. I've always planted this field based on this and some of these new Ag GIS systems can optimize what that AB line is And bring it to the field and all of a sudden I can improve my efficiency 10 15 17 18 percent that we found 18 percent savings in judicial fuel bill time Again coming back back and looking at acres per hour I mean those are the kinds of things that are going to help you be timely at the front end of the season during the season And ultimately set up and make sure your harvest is as efficient as possible. Hopefully So anyways guidance systems really on the front end We really encourage people to think about each field individual way every field presents a little bit different scenarios Where you enter the field what it's shape like and figuring out what kind of kind of Pattern where work best and there is a lot of times a way to optimize that out there We'll go through this mark. There's just basically we're going to break guidance systems into three primary categories light bar Okay, again the operator still driving it's kind of like your navigation in your vehicle Your driving is just giving you the line or where you where you're trying to go assisted steering Which is basically kind of the automated guidance type level But a little bit cheaper to get involved with and in the full auto guidance Which is really where most of our guys are headed and most machinery manufacturers are really it's all integrated in It's electronics over hydraulics in terms of steering. It's really smooth Typically one or two is something I'll probably purchase aftermarket or after I purchase the machine most likely But you can still work with your machinery manufacturer if you just want the light bar and assisted steering too so Light bars. These are just some examples pictures Again about every manufacturer has and these are fairly cheap starting. Oh, I think the cheapest one out there that we've seen recently It's about $1400 and you can spend About up to 3000 that would cover a majority of the what we call light bars. These are turnkey systems It's a display. There's a power cord typically And a remote antenna or gps receiver you stick out on On the top of the cab of the machine They're simple Usually three buttons turn it on and three buttons. You got that a b line established and you're and you're going and so And it's very easy to move. So if you're really worried, maybe this isn't for me But I can move it for my tractor to sprayer and back very easily And you can collect field data with this so coverage maps where I've applied what I've applied you can enter You have the capabilities to enter that information into capture and downloaded post after the field operation and use if you wanted to so Pretty robust today, okay Assisted steering these categories really To keep it simple as typically something that's going to occur in the cab I'm either replacing this steering wheel or something Attaches to the steering wheel and fairly much more cheaper type of Solution A lot of guys find this you'll find them on swathers for forage production Will be a quick way to get into the the guidance system But we do see some folks in alabama Farmers using them at their tractors John Deere tremble top con all have their own solutions Raven today ag leader everyone has what we would call assisted steering again It might be totally replacing your steering wheel Or something that attaches but gives you the capacity of the it drives the machine But it's all done internally to the cab The last thing is the pure auto steering technology or auto guidance what what I'll talk about Again, this is already integrated into most of the tractors out there It's it's electronics over hydraulics on your steering Actuation there's some sensors involved to figure out the steering angle of the front Or wherever your steering occurs Typically it'd be on the front of the tractor on the rear of a combine You want to know what angle that that those tires are at any moment? You have that as feedback You got a display in the cab normally it's going to be a much nicer display GPS on the cab, but it's purely a Top of the line You can use all any type of the corrections that we mentioned up to the rtk is as we covered in the gps gns receiver portion I'd say a high percentage of our farmers in alabama today are now using what we would call this auto steering option Is fully integrated into my combine my cotton harvester my tractor Potentially sprayer as well So all the machines have the capabilities like I said built into it You add the display functionality to it you add the gps on and you're fully Auto guidance today So one of the things I think again, let's just re-emphasize what we're talking about. There's two classes You got your rtk and you got the d gps or non rtk again There's different expectations that non gps can drift we talked about accuracy is going to drift and if you're really Interested and always going and accurately down that same road. You need that rtk. So just as a refresher gps transforms itself and it's really the Keep Sensor for guidance systems here that there's rtk. That's non drift centimeter level repeatable accuracy and the non rtk or d gps Where we're starting to use some different types of corrections that could drift on us a little bit when we're out there So just keep that in mind from a steering perspective On these guidance systems One thing that we always encourage folks here in alabama is this rolling terrain We know that we don't have flat land here You know and we can really get into some slopes in the southern part of the state So how do we deal with this as the as the vehicle pitches or rolls? Okay, and so basically what we have is what we call train compensation And so if we're on a this is an example of rolling if we if we did have an uncorrected Position we would be actually off but what the train compensation does is get that position corrected to the center of the machine So something to think about Just put a little Table together for everyone out here. This is just slightly dated probably a year and a half old So it might not be all up to date But you'll notice not every manufacturer has the same thing and accounts for roll pitch and yaw Which would be your angle of essentially steering And so there's typically a cost to this but most everyone is starting off from both roll pitch and yaw But not not on all these systems. So if you're in rolling terrain, you're buying a light bar I would be asking what kind of train compensation modules Do you have or do you have any for this light bar because it's going to throw you off Target or off Your a b line of where you really want to be Most of all the high-end auto guiding systems today as an example this star fire 3000 already has the train compensation Integrated into it as an example But if I looked at the the gps receiver over here that does not have train compensation Integrated into it. So again, you're going to use that solution. You might have to buy A second train compensation package to the account for especially the rolling pitch of that machine This is some examples you see on the the tremble stuff You'll see kind of a a cab mounted box that has the inertial sensors already into it So again looking at roll pitch and yaw in that case that's mounted to in At the floor of the cab if you look at the john deere and like a top consolation again It's already integrated into The receiver. So when you buy the receiver, you're not only getting the capabilities of the gps gnss It has the inertial or the train compensation already integrated in it So that's a just some some examples sometimes you have to mount something on the cabinet floor or in the floor of the cab Or some of them these these receivers already have it built into them So a very very important thing is we found out here in alabama because of the train conditions that most of our farmers deal with So the final thing and some final comments i'll make is If you're purchasing machines today, it's not so big, but if if you're if you're out looking at used farm equipment and You're interested or have already into the Guidance or precision egg make sure you're buying buying equipment that are labeled guidance ready That has the the steering valve already available It makes putting some of this guidance system on the tractor a very painless part of the install But if it's non guidance ready most of the times you're going to have to buy another three to four thousand dollars to buy a steering valve Um And you might have to buy a few other extra components that That you hadn't thought about just to add on the true auto guidance type If it's guidance ready It'll always have some of the potentially the steering angle sensor already on the tractor Plus the proper steering valve to make this stuff work So guidance ready whether you see green star ready or whatever on the side make sure You ask if you're really wanting to transfer or make older equipment work that is just guidance ready How do you see that john is it would it be? In the owner's manual or on the side of the tractor or around the steering wheel somewhere where How would you know that they're not just if you ask? I don't know if you've heard people will lie to you Particularly when they want your money How do you how do you know that this would be guidance ready? Most of them on the cab typically on the on the window will have some kind of indication that it's It's guidance ready each company use a little bit different terminology The safest thing to do mark is get the VIN number off of the machine Call the dealer or the local dealer and say can you give me the specs and make sure this is guidance ready Does it have the valve does it have? A lot of times you can look for the steering valve, but normally that's up underneath the cab and if you You know you're not quite sure but you can look and make sure that right steering valves there And if there's a sensor on the on the kingpin or the on the front You know you can see some of that pretty quick But if you're not looking you're not sure get the VIN number call Call your dealer and get get all the information you can and ask Well if you're looking at two different pieces of equipment and one was guidance ready and the other wasn't I mean just the cost to break it up you can afford To pay a good bit more money. Absolutely for a guidance ready tractor So we had we had that very instance last year someone bought a a little bit older tractor They thought it was guidance ready, but they had to basically spend about another Over four thousand dollars and that that's just to get it to the point where it was quote guidance ready That doesn't include the GPS and getting everything else installed and make that run So it's it can be a costly mistake if you're not watching out and that I think Most of our guys here in alabama are really starting to recognize the value of looking out for this guidance ready On any of the machines what what would be a year model? That they went from being rare to being the norm Well, that's a good question. I just kind of across the board. I would say Somewhere in the 2000s or Yes, that's across the board. Every company is a little bit different. So I don't want to don't hold me exactly to that But if you're kind of 2000s, yeah, look because it could be or it might not Yeah, and you'll get to some series where the the first Builds were not guidance ready and the the latter builds were guidance ready We've had a few issues or a couple situations that where You just can't say well this all this series is potentially guidance ready That's just some some things to look out for So So with that we'll go through some some just Consideration so if you're out there and you're you're jumping in, you know, again, do I want a light bar? Or do I want auto guidance? And so if I want auto guidance either can go with an assistive steering option where again it kind of mounts up in the cab on the steering or In that proximity to the drive the or a fully auto integrated auto steering solution A lot of rolling ground You want the auto guide auto guide would be my recommendation Because there's never how many times you've heard guys that bought light bars and say man I thought I could drive pretty pretty good But I just can't keep myself over and if you let the machine take and go to the full auto guidance level It just really takes all that out there Keep emphasizing accuracy in my out spraying and was will do me the trick Or am I out planting and doing some things where I would really need that centimeter level accuracy? And I need to go full fully rtk Where do I get that correction from because not all corrections potentially might be available in your area And then as we recommended in the gps Module we really recommended gnss. We want that guidance system work 24 7 365 When you're up against trees, which is common in here in alabama as you know We want that system to be able to make that first pass around the field or those last couple passes when you're starting to finish up Train compensation is a must. We really recommend it For any of the systems you can buy the train compensation as an add-on to a lot of the light bars But in most cases when we talked about the auto guidance, it's already integrated But just check to make sure because not all systems come with train compensation And so is it included or not just be asking at Right up front or you're just not going to get the performance that you're expecting capabilities to be on guidance We talked to right up front guidance day is is um Is um Basically air conditioning mark, but when I take this john deere display right here, you know, it's just not a guidance Product today, you know that might be where I start But it does rate control it can control my planter I could potentially buy a fertilizer applicator and run it through this particular Display so when I think about capabilities Don't think about just buying guidance today even on these light bars You take trembles like 750 light bar. It can do rate control It can do automatic section control or I can do go to some of these higher end displays that the companies like this one from john deere That's a 26 30 this can do all the technologies in one I can start with guidance and then I might have the capability to grow With the technology and add on things and so that's something to really think about application control Automatic section control, which we'll talk about in other modules But all those are built in it might cost me to unlock it But we're not buying guidance today We really want to get people over that hurdle that you're buying more than guidance So think about where you might want to be in five years or even two years in some cases to add on capabilities Is it upgradeable, you know, I take any of displays whether it's just Raven and busy or pro is john deere 26 30 Again going kind of like back to the gps receiver. There's always upgrades either a fix or something new that they've improved on And in making sure that That you can upgrade that okay and and so It has to be upgradeable And then finally can I document can I get those coverage maps whether I'm going to use them today or not But can I get that data from and in most cases all these guidance systems will give you coverage maps or as applied maps that you can That you can record and archive for the future Or if you're doing some work for someone give it to them to tell them what you did And probably the most important thing mark and you can Oil end on this is who's going to who are you going to call? And you know that local support and having a trusted source of well, that's a big deal really depends and Really influences your decision on what you're going to buy So somebody in doping might need a different product than somebody in Athens than somebody in Montgomery. Absolutely It's who's that trusted source and who are you going to call and keep you running when something does occur Whether that's an issue or you got something happening. She got some downtime So service is a critical aspect to these guidance systems and stuff So with that we've kind of gone through the full spectrum of guidance We've got some Lot of options here in Alabama as you know mark It's exciting what the capabilities of these can do today. You know, we're not just buying guidance today We're buying full suite of capabilities built into any of these type of displays It's just upon us to take it and really maximize the benefit for my farm operation John, I like that maximize the benefit. I mean all this costs money, but it's going to save a lot of money We're talking about 18 fuel savings. We talk about seed and all input savings This is critical and we hope that You know, we've helped you make some decisions. We we hope we can train you with this Take your test if you're if you're Want a certificate and we look forward to seeing you for our next module. Thank you