Some Seedy Technology
As I sit in the tractor driving it, the cultivator and connected air-seeder while listening to Day 3 of the Hamish and Andy ‘Caravan of Courage’ tour, I’m pondering a couple of different questions:
- Who owns the ‘Clarkson – The Ultimate Collection’ DVD I just found behind the passenger seat? Yep, this tractor has a passenger seat.
- How can it be that I’ve made so few posts recently?
Not something you expect to find in a tractor.
Fortunately, I can answer both of these questions quite easily. As I alluded to at the top, I’m on the tractor, and as well as myself there are only 2 others who drive this tractor regularly. One of them Is my dad, the other is my uncle. One is a car buff, the other probably doesn’t know who Jeremy Clarkson is. One has a PS3, the other doesn’t. Uncle Jack, if you can’t find your DVD it’s because I’ve borrowed it.
Q2: We are about 2/3rds of the way through seeding. Seeding, as the name suggests is where we plant all our crops to start another growing season. Along with harvest, it is one of our two really busy times for the year. It is busy because the ideal planting time is only a 4-6 week window around now. The possibility of weather delays and the inevitability of machinery breakdowns only add to the urgency.
An idea of what I spend most of my days seeing.
However as simple as seeding is, we have some pretty cool technology helping us do it. Our tractors are all fitted with GPS guided ‘auto-steer’, which means they can supposedly steer accurate to 2cm. Our is experience is that while it isn’t quite that perfect, it is still brilliant! It is much more accurate than a human operator could be and it allows us to plant in between the rows of last years left over crop stubble. While this gives our crops many agronomic benefits, the coolest thing for me is sitting in a machine that can drive itself! I can’t overstate how cool that is! The future is here!
The seeding depth is also automated via four infrared sensors along the front of the cultivator. These sensors measure the height of the cultivator from the ground and the controller in the cabin directs the cultivator up or down. Likewise, once I set the hand throttle the tractor will travel at it’s set speed until I shift it. Which brings me back to the DVD. A DVD is useless without a DVD player. Yes, we’ve installed a 7″ LCD DVD player, which usually displays the inside of our air-seeder so we know when to fill up. But of course, it can play DVDs, which can be watched because everything is automated in this tractor while seeding. Which gives me the ability to write blog posts or watch DVDs. I only need to be sure that I steer around trees, and at the end of a pass!
View of the Cultivator & Air Seeder at night
So that’s a little bit about seeding and my lack of posts recently! Anything surprise you? Any questions or comments?
Themocracy
You need a pic from the silo again Jonathan