Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Automatic Section Control (ASC) for planters and sprayers increases input place-
ment accuracy while reducing the wastage of seeds, chemicals, and nutrients. ASC
shuts down the planter rows or boom sections when the planter or sprayer passes
through already planted/sprayed areas, waterways, terraces, and headland turns
(Figure 5.6). Trimble's TruCount
TM
and Ag leader's electric row clutches (Figure
5.7) are some of the typical planter components used by the producers for row control
of the planters.
A study by Luck et al. (2010) confirmed the value of section control when applied
to agricultural sprayers. In Figure 5.8, the overlap areas are depicted as black
bars with lengths that coincide with the width of the boom as the sprayer passes
over regions of the field that were sprayed in previous passes. Again, in this case,
GNSS coupled with a map-based control system, switches off sections or elements
of the spray boom causing chemical and/or nutrients to be conserved. The authors
estimated crop input savings, for the sprayer and ACS used in their investigation,
approached 16%.
Double planted area
Skipped area
Point-row control
FIGURE 5.6
Benefits of automatic section control. (Alabama Precision Agriculture Extension.)
(b)
(a)
FIGURE 5.7
(a) Trimble's TruCount (Pneumatic); (b) Agleader's Electric row clutches.
(Alabama precision agriculture extension.)
