PHOTO: RUUD PLOEG
GLOBAL VIEW ▶▶▶
required per PA application. ISOBUS was in- vented just to prevent this, making sure each machine could communicate with each im- plement. If you have a tractor with an inte- grated ISOBUS-terminal, your autosteer GPS terminal can send the GPS coordinates to the ISOBUS-terminal through a simple cable. This should be enough to make ISOBUS work with your implements. The baseline of this story is that simply investigating which functionality your current terminals have can save you from buying yet another one. Having many termi- nals in your cab might make you look high- tech, but can you check all the terminals, where you’re going and your work at the same time?
If you have a tractor with an integrated ISOBUS-terminal, your autosteer GPS terminal can send the GPS coordinates to the ISOBUS-terminal through a simple cable.
New role models for precision farming
BY LEO THOLHUIJSEN T
he second year of The Dutch National Experi- mental Ground for Precision Farming project (NPPL) started on the last day of
November. Ten new participants have been se- lected and they will start in 2019. This brings the total to 16 farming businesses. Three dairy farm- ers, two bulb growers, four arable farmers and an open ground cropper join the six pioneers. I wrote about NPPL before. In short: the four year project is to help farmers and growers to achieve more return on investment, to lower environmental impact and to increase food safety. Wageningen University experts will help the farmers to implement precision farm- ing techniques in their businesses (by the way, there are plans to start a similar project in the United Kingdom). The farmers will start with precision farming applications that are ready for practical use. Examples are site-specific dosage of fertiliser and pesticides, site-specific planting of potatoes, high-tech nest protection and custom watering.
Role models The 16 NPPL participants are role models. The
Regrettably last summer’s extreme drought in the Netherlands had a larger effect on the crops than the variable dosage of herbicides.
idea is that the knowledge about precision farming applications will spread from their farms to others. Through publicity around the participants, the Ministry of Agriculture hopes that it is able to help all farmers in the Nether- lands with precision farming. On
www.proef-
tuinprecisielandbouw.nl one can find news, photo and video reports. Farmers and others that are interested can discuss and exchange knowledge in the private Facebook-group. In the last weeks, stock has been taken at the first six arable farmers’ businesses. Overall
conclusions: they certainly see leads to im- prove with precision farming techniques, they want to continue next year, there still are growing pains, and costs precede revenues. It has also been extremely dry – and this drought had a bigger effect on the crops than the yield effect of variable dosage of soil herbicides in onions. Another conclusion is that the average dosage of soil herbicides and haulm stripping agents can be reduced without an adverse im- pact on the crops. So the first positive environ- mental result has already been achieved.
▶ FUTURE FARMING | 22 February 2019 47
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