Assessing the potential of automatic section control

T. S. Stombaugh, R. S. Zandonadi, C. R. Dillon

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

5 Scopus citations

Abstract

One of the newest innovations in Precision Agriculture is automatic section control for application equipment. Automatic section control systems will continuously record the areas of a field that have been covered during a field operation and then automatically turn on and off sub-sections of a machine to prevent double coverage of previously treated areas. Research on a cooperator farm in Kentucky, USA has shown potential savings of as much as 25% in very oddly-shaped fields using automatic section control. On the other hand, potential savings in rectangular fields would be almost zero. Accordingly, larger machine or section widths will cause overlapped areas to increase. To make an informed decision about purchasing and implementing the technology, producers need to know the potential savings for a given field shape. This paper describes a software tool that can be used to evaluate the percentage of a field that would be overlapped for different boom section sizes.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationPrecision Agriculture 2009 - Papers Presented at the 7th European Conference on Precision Agriculture, ECPA 2009
Pages759-766
Number of pages8
StatePublished - 2009
Event7th European Conference on Precision Agriculture, ECPA 2009 - Wageningen, Netherlands
Duration: Jul 6 2009Jul 8 2009

Publication series

NamePrecision Agriculture 2009 - Papers Presented at the 7th European Conference on Precision Agriculture, ECPA 2009

Conference

Conference7th European Conference on Precision Agriculture, ECPA 2009
Country/TerritoryNetherlands
CityWageningen
Period7/6/097/8/09

Keywords

  • Computational tool
  • Double coverage
  • Precision agriculture equipment
  • Section control

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Agronomy and Crop Science

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