How agriculture works thread

[5030]

Farmhand Mike filming the JD X9 in Indianan. 690 HP machine that can carry 460 bushels in its grain tank.

Big machines = Big payments = big fuel cost = big notes = depressed crop prices. Fun to watch, not fun to pay for. Besides, Deere has made it extremely difficult for any producer to service their machines.

It's Indiana btw.

I don't believe you'll find anyone on here that has that caliber of equipment and certainly not the payment books that go with it either.

 

[ArlyA]

The Welker family planting camelina in western Montana this spring. Not sure how wide his Ponypress is but might be 75ft and they had pump grief on the Bud. This is larger equipment than I've got to see in operation.

 

[sixdogs]

Neighbor's farm. Here's the future. Rather than spraying an entire field, a drone can spot spray fungicide where and when needed and no one breaks a sweat. No crops get driven over by sprayers, no crop duster planes are needed and the farmer can do something else on his endless list.

Chemical costs and $$ amounts are a shadow of their former self, food is healthier and fuel and consumables dramatical reduced. Yields relative to labor output soar. What's not to love?

 

[5030]

We have a contract applicator here that uses a large commercial drone (very expensive) and he ran it into the high voltage transmission line that ran parallel to a field he was spraying. Cooked the drone and the utility levied against him for damage to the transmission lines and tower structures. I do believe he is no longer in business.


I happen to own 2 drones myself, neither is capable of a large payload. I use them for scouting hayfields for invasive plants and for personal entertainment as well. Both are Autel drones btw.

 

[LouNY]

Neighbor's farm. Here's the future. Rather than spraying an entire field, a drone can spot spray fungicide where and when needed and no one breaks a sweat. No crops get driven over by sprayers, no crop duster planes are needed and the farmer can do something else on his endless list.

Chemical costs and $$ amounts are a shadow of their former self, food is healthier and fuel and consumables dramatical reduced. Yields relative to labor output soar. What's not to love?

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They were demonstrating those drones at the last Empire farm days. They will have some limited practicality in a few instances. Spot spraying will only be effective in few instances. Also with the wind blast from thereown props they can't spary close to property lines. With insect damages often the visible damage is only a small percentage of the actual infestation. Nice idea but impractical for many applications.

 

[5030]

Wind drift (and prop wash) will always be an issue, especially with very aggressive pesticides and herbicides. You don't spray a corn field with a truck farm vegetable field adjacent to the corn. Around here, there are a lot of truck farm fields that are posted (signs) stating just that. Like I said, I use my drones just for scouting and then physically go out and spot spray the invasive weeds.

I do like my Autel drones. Unlike DJI drones, Autel's have no built in geofencing. They do have crash avoidance however and line of sight is much greater than any DJI.

 

[ArlyA]

Barr Harvesting photo. The generation that started the opportunity we have today. (location unknown) This would be contact harvesting group.

 

[Creamer]

The Welker family planting camelina in western Montana this spring. Not sure how wide his Ponypress is but might be 75ft and they had pump grief on the Bud. This is larger equipment than I've got to see in operation.

I have not heard the term pony press for many years. That was normally used for a small drill that was pulled behind a moldboard plow so that you plowed, repacked the soil, and seeded it all in one pass. It was usually a very slow operation because of the horsepower it took to pull the moldboard plow and the drill it could not be very wide.

This unit is more commonly referred to as an air seeder or an air drill because it pneumatically sends the seed from the central tank to the individual rows. There certainly is some tillage going on but it is light tillage, i.e. the depth that you plant at.

This unit is probably around 60 ft wide which is the largest Case IH makes. There are other units that get to 80 ft.

 

[ArlyA]

Laura farms did a nice video about fixing a pivot and getting there JD S780 combine ready.

 

[ptsg]

A great sounding Fiat Allis 10-B with over 28,000 hours pulling a 5 shank Giorgi subsoiler.