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| I have a 2012 Gleaner S67 combine. I have installed an AgLeader system in it for both yield and steering. I harvested a test plot with it this year. My process was as follows:
1. Calibrate for vibration.
2. Calibrate for temperature
3. Calibrate for moisture
4. Go into E half of field (test plot was in W half) and calibrate yield monitor at high, low and medium speeds. E half of field was planted the same day as the plot and E half was the same variety as the check variety in the plot
I did quite a few calibration loads using my cart as scales (cart has been regularly checked against scale weight for trucks and is always dead on). It took quite a few loads to get it to be under 3% average. It allows you to select the calibration loads you want for it to use and to de-select loads you don't want it to use. I would think all loads would have validity unless you messed up keeping track of weight for a given load? I guess I need to understand the theory of calibrating better.
Next I went to the test plot and started harvesting. Each variety was a full 12 rows all the way through the pivot. I made a separate region for every variety so I could keep track of average moisture, average yield and area.
I found that for comparing varieties the yield monitor was not incredibly useful. For example, for variety A and variety B, the yield monitor said variety A averaged 200 bushels and variety B averaged 215 bushels. From the yield monitor variety B would be the clear winner. From the scale though, variety A made 207 and variety B made 208. Yes, A lost, but it was really neck and neck.
I guess I feel like I tried very hard to be accurate on my calibration process and I'm just not convinced yield monitor data can be trusted for plot work. I think it's good for helping to create management zones within a field but I just don't know about detailed stuff like plots. | |
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Test plots: weight vs yield monitor
