coordinates and store them that way. This is possible, however, if you connect them using an NMEA cable, and this may vary by brand of GPS and tractor. This cable will allow you to supply the terminal with GPS coordinates rela- tively cheapily and easily. It can also be used to record vehicle data such as fuel consump- tion, the required engine and PTO power, lift- ing capacity and traction, and travel speed site specific. These are free data that are collected during (cultivation) work in whatever manner, and that provides a great deal of information about the condition and structure of your soil. What is more, they provide information to supplement soil scans, yield maps and satellite images. The more data you have, the more ef- fective and reliable they are, making it easier for you to establish relations, draw conclusions, exclude aspects, and make decisions. Data is transported either by USB stick or, as is increasingly the case, wirelessly via 4G, Blue- tooth or Wi-fi. There are various initiatives and
solutions in this field across the world, such as ISOconnect and 365Farmnet in Europe and IS- OBlue and Climate FieldView in the USA, along with numerous national initiatives. Worth- while mentioning are also two brand-inde- pendent Dutch initiatives: Agrobox from FARM24, and an ISOBlue derivative from Trek-
kerdata.nl (see box on ISOBlue: ‘Freeing tractor data’). The transparency that European tractor manufacturers are required to provide regard- ing data on a tractor’s CAN bus/Isobus (within the scope of releasing what is known as Repair and Maintenance Information or RMI) assists with the ability to interprete and (wirelessly) send that data. Agrobox and ISOBlue are both compact boxes that draw data from the CAN bus/Isobus via the tractor’s diagnostics connector, and then continuously send them wirelessly to a cloud environment using 4G. The users who share their experiences in this article see a great deal of potential in the collection and
“I certainly don’t need expensive soil scans”
Arable farmer Derk Gesink and a number of his Dutch colleagues want to gain more from the tractor data they are collecting every time they cultivate. “Not through the manufacturer or the software provider, and not through a monthly or annual subscrip- tion – just getting the data yourself (practi- cally) for free and without that data being stored somewhere far away and processed in a cloud environment. I wanted something independent of any brand, where I can de- termine myself what happens to the data.” He discovered the ISOBlue box developed by Purdue University in the USA. “It contains standard, inexpensive modules plus a mo- dem with a SIM card. You can connect it to the diagnostics connector in any tractor. From that point, it uses 4G to continuously send all data wirelessly that the tractor puts on the CAN bus, including GPS coordinates. If we can’t decipher the codes on the CAN bus, we use reverse engineering. For exam- ple, we operate the tractor hitch, and look at what data flow it creates on the CAN bus.” Gesink also hopes to link the data to yield measurements, but his highest hopes are for
During each tillage job the tractor collects valuable data for free, like fuel consumption and required power. In particular tillage, sowing and planting provides useful infor- mation.
management of as much data as possible, al- though, external influences such as shifting gears up or down when ploughing, for exam- ple, can throw a spanner in the works when it comes to validating that data.
Derk Gesink, arable farmer Mensingeweer (NL).
the data generated by soil tillage. “Plough resistance for instance is a measure for the type of soil . I certainly don’t need any expen- sive soil scans for that. A useful additional fea- ture is that the ISOBlue box can act as a hot-
spot to set up a local Wi-Fi network, which you could use for your tablet with farm man- agement software on it. Or you could use it to remotely monitor what is going on on the CAN bus.”
▶ FUTURE FARMING | 27 August 2019 41
PHOTO: PETER ROEK
PHOTO: JAN WILLEM VAN VLIET
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