Applying Precision Agriculture to Harvestingpami.ca/wp...Precision-Agriculture-to-Harvesting.pdf · •Wikipedia Definition: “Precision agriculture (PA) or satellite farming or

Innovative Solutions for Agriculture and Beyond

Applying Precision Agriculture to

Harvesting

Presented by:


Facts:

• SK = 33 million acres of grain harvested per year

• SK Production is about 1 billion plus bushels / year

Estimations:

• 2,500 acres / combine = 13,200 combines in SK!

• About 76,000 Bushels / combine

• Just 1 bu/acre less loss = 33 million bushels

• At an average of $7 / bushel = $231 million

Background


Western Canada harvesting challenges • Short Harvest Season

• Shortage of Experienced Manpower

• Wide Variety of Crops

• Canola – small, light seeds, high MOG to grain ratio

• Tough threshing crops like wheat and flax

• Easy threshing crops like dry canola, peas, and lentils

• Wide variety of conditions

• High variability in some areas

• Long, green straw

• Lodging

• Short crops that pod low

• Weather


What does harvesting have to do with Precision Agriculture?

Source: Claas.com


What does harvesting have to do with Precision Agriculture?

• Seminar Advertisement: “Precision Ag is continually advancing technologies and tools to help the producer get more bushels from the same land unit with the same or less inputs.”

Source: travelpod.com


Are we practicing Precision Ag during harvesting?

• Wikipedia Definition: “Precision agriculture (PA) or satellite farming or site specific crop management (SSCM) is a farming management concept based on observing, measuring and responding to inter and intra-field variability in crops.”


Harvesting: Are we observing variability? • Operator sees crop height and density changes

• Combine sees variability too late (loss sensors)

• Some combines sense crop load at the feeder or rotor / cylinder

• The combine can’t see the variability ahead…yet


Harvesting: Are we measuring variability? • Yield and moisture meters

• Improvements needed:

• Calibration of yield and moisture meters

• Grain loss sensing

• In the future:

• “Look ahead” crop density and height sensors


Harvesting: Are we responding to variability?

• Manual operation not precise enough

• Some combines have automation of feed rate and some settings

• Improvements Needed:

• Loss sensing

• Returns composition analyzing

• Straw and chaff MOG rate sensing

• Grain sample analyzing (imaging tech)

• In the future:

• Autonomous combine


Why is loss important to Precision Ag? • Yield maps input into variable rate prescriptions

• Trend to base inputs on nutrients consumed the previous year (yield)

• Good chance the yield reported is incorrect due to loss and or non-calibrated yield monitors

Source: Wikipedia


Sources of loss • Nature – shatter (ripening, wind, rain, hail, wildlife,

heat)

• Cutting – windrowing or straight cutting

• Combine Leakage – feeder, separator, grain tank, elevators, shoe seals

• Combine Processing

• Feeding

• Threshing

• Separating

• Cleaning


How bad can losses be? • Current losses typically 1-5 Bu/acre

• Can be 5-15 Bu/acre!

• Loss increases as MOG feedrate increases

About 10 Bu/acre!


What’s Happening? • More power! Since 1990 combine HP has more than

doubled

• Significant material handling improvements

• Maximum throughput is greater than capacity of the processing and cleaning systems in some conditions.

• Modern spreaders and choppers hide the loss

• Improper settings or non optimum configuration for W Canada crops and conditions

Source: strawchopper.com


What’s Happening? • Assumption that the latest combine has X% more

capacity than the previous model in all conditions.

• Assumption that if the combine can send it through the grain will end up in the tank

• Similar ground speeds with wider headers

• Yields have increased

• Non-informative loss monitors


What’s the cost of loss? • Canola at $10/bu

• 160 acres

• 40 ft header

• @ 3 mph (14.5 ac/hr) loss = 1 bu/acre over 11.0 hrs

• @ 4 mph (19.4 ac/hr) loss = 3 bu/acre over 8.2 hrs

• Reduced harvest time by 2.8hr @ $300/hr = +$840

• @ 3 mph cost of loss = $1,600 or $145/hr

• @ 4mph cost of loss = $4,800 or $585/hr

• Loss Increased by $440/hr by going 1 mph faster

• Cost $2,360 to go 1 mph faster for 160 acres

• Plus the cost of dealing with the volunteer plants


Online loss and cost calculator! http://farmpro.ca/ref/CombineLoss

By Weight By Seed Count Cost Calculator

http://farmpro.ca/ref/CombineLoss/index.html


Loss Curves Explained


Can we be more precise with settings?






How do we apply more precision to the harvest operation?

• Next 5 years:

• Awareness and Education

• Operator feedback of what’s happening inside the combine

• Calibrate yield monitors!

• Check Losses!

• Invest time in optimizing the combine

• Utilize automated features


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Air Velocity Legend - Meters per Second


• 5-15 years:

• Advancement of sensors

• Air velocity sensors under the sieves

• More accurate and meaningful loss sensing

• Sensors under the rotor and sieves to indicate how far back the seeds are getting



• 5-15 years:

• Further advancement of automated features:

• Sensors to look ahead at crop density

• Indication of amount of clean grain in returns

• Normalize settings and indications across combines

• Fully automated settings



• 15-25 years:

• Autonomous combines

• Optimal settings

• Optimal feed rate

• Optimal route planning



• 15-25 years:

• Real time decision management system

• Targets entered by farm manager

• Telematics that reports yield, loss, and productivity

• Suggested actions to autonomous combine based on many factors • Weather

• Machinery operating cost

• Crop price

• Fuel cost

• Acres remaining



Applying Precision

Agriculture to Harvesting

Questions?

Documents

Applying Precision Agriculture to Harvestingpami.ca/wp...Precision-Agriculture-to-Harvesting.pdf · •Wikipedia Definition: “Precision agriculture (PA) or satellite farming or