West Central Missouri | caseihfarmer - 10/8/2017 11:35
i have also pondered this. why can the same monitor and hardware that shuts off my row units within inches not be more precise on my platform header?
I have been giving this some thought, and upon many hours of solemn reflection (a.k.a. monotonus cab hours) I think I've come to understand the cause of, and improvised a workaround to, the issue.
Think about it for a moment. When you are operating a planter, or a corn head, whether you realize it or not, you are augmenting your steering accuracy by some external means. Whether it's autosteer on the planter, or following the dirt marker, or the corn head following your rows, you have some sort of exteral influence affecting your pass to pass swath width, making it much more accurate. If you're operating a platform, it's an entirely freehand operation. By the very nature of this, platform operation is going to show more overlap.
With it a given that steering is less accurate this way, the next step is to make the monitor correct for it. I recently set up a dual monitor Integra yield monitoring system. This allowed me to run two harvest configurations side by side. My primary display contained what I will call the "standard" configuration. It's a harvest configuration with a 25 foot platform, and it's autoswath breaks on 10% (30 inch) sections. The secondary display contained what I will call the "test" configuration. Even though it is a platform (the same platform), this one is configured as a 20 row, 15 inch row spacing, row crop header. it's autoswath breaks on 5% (15 inch) sections.
On both displays, I set autoswath sensitivity to 5. Based on what I have observed, I think you would be well served to do this even without RTK. I am running WAAS with OT2+ steering, so I have roll corrected GPS.
I've run this setup on several fields now. The most recent one was a smallish one with a lot of partial swaths. The standard configuration counted 104.4% acres, as compared to the as-planted acreage. The test configuration counted 101.4% acres as compared to the as-planted. I thought an accuracy improvement like that was nothing to sneeze at. |
Ag Leader harvest configuration autoswath increment size
