Customer Testimonials

Tractor fuel savings of up to 15 per cent and increased accuracy have been experienced by a Lincolnshire grower using John Deere‘s AutoTrac automated steering system.

David Allwood is farm manager for George Hay & Sons Ltd, based at Wragg Marsh Farm in Spalding. The business farms around 1500 acres altogether, chiefly sugar beet (200 acres this year), main crop potatoes (330 acres) and cereals (600 acres). The rest of the acreage is rented out to other growers for rotation purposes, typically including calabrese, carrots, cauliflowers, Dutch white cabbage and onions.

In spring 2008, part of the sugar beet crop was drilled for the first time using a new John Deere 130hp 6630 tractor on narrow tyres, pulling a new 12 row Kverneland Accord beet drill. The tractor was equipped with Deere’s GreenStar AutoTrac system, using the same StarFire satellite receiver with SF2 signal and data card that had been bought previously with the farm’s new CTS 9780i combine harvester, from local dealer Burdens of Sutterton.

John Deere's StarFire positioning technology processes differential GPS signals to pinpoint a machine's location in the field, to improve accuracy and productivity. Customers can choose from three levels of positioning accuracy without changing the receiver hardware, allowing them to be tailored to specific applications (the hardware can also be transferred easily between different AutoTrac-ready machines, for added convenience):

• a free SF1 signal, offering an accuracy of +/-30cm, is suitable for Parallel Tracking and is available for AutoTrac guidance when performing tillage, spraying and lime or slurry spreading operations;
• an SF2 signal is available on payment of a licence fee, offering accuracy of +/-10cm for harvesting, tillage, seeding, planting and mowing;
• the RTK signal is accurate to +/-2cm, with true repeatability in the field – there is no licence fee, and the battery or mains operated base station can be portable or fixed to cover one or more working machines within a 10km line of sight range.

“It took about four hours to get used to the on-board computer the first time we used it, and get the AutoTrac system set up properly,” says David Allwood. “It was hard going to start with, and naturally there were a few hiccups in the first field, but you expect that with any new technology. However, once we got used to it, we found the overall accuracy of the system was almost unbelievable.

“We were drilling at 18-inch centres, and every row was exact, to the inch. John Deere quotes an accuracy level of up to four inches using the SF2 signal, but it was better than that. A neighbour even went out with a tape measure and he couldn’t find a wide row – he said if I’d told him that in the pub he wouldn’t have believed me!”

The drilling operation was also tractor driver Raymond Newell’s first experience with the technology. He comments: “Driving an AutoTrac tractor is just much more relaxing. You still need to concentrate on the computer displays in the cab, and check any alarms that might get thrown up, but it’s a lot easier than keeping your hands on the steering wheel the whole time. I usually have the tractor’s rear window open and keep an eye over the back, so I can hear the seed clicking through the drill – it gives me peace of mind to know everything’s working correctly.”

AutoTrac’s primary functions on the farm are for sugar beet drilling, working land down for potatoes and harvesting, although David Allwood says they are also now looking at other potential uses, including potato harvesting and fertiliser spreading. The system taken from the combine and 6630 tractor is also used on a new John Deere 220hp 7930 tractor, which pulls a ripper and a power harrow when preparing land for potatoes. The farm’s first new John Deere tractor of the three, a 305hp 8430 model, was bought at the same time as the combine, complete with its own AutoTrac system for use primarily with a bed-former, also for the potato operation.

“There are a number of benefits from using AutoTrac, but the biggest plus is that everything’s dead straight,” says David. “With the sugar beet drill, you know seed rates are 100 per cent, and everything is right from that foundation – getting the crop in the ground in this way is the best start to optimise yield. The contractor’s sugar beet harvesters are all on AutoTrac too, so everything matches up. After last year’s beet harvest, the contractor said he could tell which fields were drilled using AutoTrac and which ones weren’t.

“Another very important plus is the fuel savings. To be fair, I don’t write everything down, but I would think we must be saving something like 15 per cent per field on fuel by not overlapping. Using AutoTrac and the new drill, we’ve been getting at least 50 per cent more output per day as well – on one field I reckon we were achieving a spot rate of around 96 acres a day.

“One other bonus, from a personal point of view, is that you’re not fatigued after a full day’s driving. I’ve worked till 9 or 10pm at night when necessary, and it would be hard to get such long days out of any operator without this kind of system. It’s great for night-time work and for foggy mornings too, as you don’t have to worry about seeing any marks – it makes life so much easier. I certainly wouldn’t want to buy a new machine without AutoTrac now.”

June 2009