Near Intersection of I-35 & I-90 Southern Mn. | Our crops are corn and soybeans both planted in 30" rows. We plant with a Deere tractor and a 24 row 1770Nt. The tractor is steered by Ag Leader's SteerCommand Z2. The display is an Ag Leader InCommand 1200 fed with a GPS 7500 with TerraStar correction. It works extremely well. The rows ae nice and straight but not necessarily perfect due to planter drift on sidehills etc.
I installed Ag Leader's Steady Steer (steering wheel turner) in my Deere 9770 combine to use with soybean harvest. I typically harvest the soybeans with the rows rather than at an angle. Since the bean head takes 14 rows and the planter planted 24 rows, I'm harvesting on the "guess rows" on most passes. I reuse the AB lines from planting as the AB lines for harvesting. The system adjusts for the difference in width. The system is able to follow the tractor planting passes and has enough extra width to cut 14 rows. There could be exceptions for extreme situations. This works fine for the most part. Harvesting the soybeans at a slight angle could have some advantages but I prefer to harvest straight with the rows.
This approach did not work as well for harvesting corn even though I use an 8 row corn head to harvest following the 24 row planter. I felt the combine was not following the corn rows as closely as I wanted due to planter drift, GPS drift etc. I use a feeler system from the Headsight company to control the Steady Steer motor for corn harvest.
Last year, I decided to move my Steady Steer system from the combine to my newly acquired used Hagie STS-12. This was controlled by the InCommand 1200 and GPS 7500 using TerraStar. The InCommand handles the spray control.
It did work for steering, but we felt that it was not the answer for our row crops. Between the mismatch of width (60' planter, 90' sprayer), GPS drift, planter drift and ground speed we felt assisted steering was not acceptable for our situation. I believe assisted steering would be acceptable for broadacre spraying where no rows were involved at the time.
Headsight did offer a feeler system for certain Self-Propelled sprayers at one time. That approach required hydraulic steering but has been discontinued with the change of ownership. Camera guidance is next I'm told. |
2013 Hagie STS 12 Autosteer Options?
