Near Intersection of I-35 & I-90 Southern Mn. | I did some bench testing with an Ag Leader OptRx system yesterday. This was my first hands on experience although it was still just on the bench.
I setup the sensors (3) on the bench and connected them to the Master Module and connected them to both an Integra and an Insight.
The setup was pretty straight forward and I made some simulated Reference strips and then used these Reference strips along with my Direct Liquid simulator setup to get a feel as to how the system would look in actual field operation.
We tried changing the feedback from the sensors by covering them partially with our hands or pieces of paper. As we did this with varying degrees we noticed that the amount of "N" needed varied as we travelled about the simulated field. This was a pretty crude simulation of actual field conditions but did seem to work.
Later one of the sales force actually brought in some strips of grass from along the sidewalk so that we could point the sensors at the grass in an attempt to better simulate the situation.
This simulation was where the amount of "N" needed was determined on-the-go with the sensors providing the "Visual Index" from the growing crop to determine the amount of "N" needed in a given area. This rate was fed to the rate control portion of the system where the Direct Command Liquid module would then attempt to apply the desired amount of "N".
The "N" source could be from 28%, 32%, NH3 etc. When I accidently chose "Water" as the product, the system correctly informed me that "Water" is not a source of "N". When the other products were chosen, the system made the conversion from the "N" requirement in pounds to the correct conversion for gallons of 28% or 32%.
This seemed to work in a reasonable manner given the rather crude test setup.
We then explored the idea of using the sensor(s) in a scouting mode where the V.I. information was gathered in prior pass (spraying scouting etc.) but then the "N" would be applied later. Our thought was that an Rx map of the desired "N" could be made by analyzing the V.I. index and other factors. This Rx map could then be loaded into the system where the Rx map would contol the actual application rate. The applicator would not need to have the sesnors present on the applicator since the rate was handled via an Rx and was already predetermined.
We were not successful with this process as it appears that SMS Advanced is necessary for this type of analysis. We did not have Advanced available and ran out of time anyway.
Anyone have any suggestions or further thoughts on this process?
Edited by tedbear 6/19/2011 08:51
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OptRx
