Smart farming means efficient agriculture

Agriculture has never been slow to adopt new technology. In the 20th Century, the way farmers tended their land and gathered crops changed completely. Horses were replaced by static steam engines, and then tractors; and many of the tasks that used to be carried out by hand – for example threshing grain or lifting potatoes – started to be carried out by machines designed specifically for those tasks.
 
In the 21st Century farmers are going through another technological revolution. This time, however, it does not involve the machines they use (which in many cases are already working at the limits imposed on them by modern engineering), it is the way machines are used that is changing.
 
Smart farming is making a difference to agricultural businesses of all sizes. In-cab GPS guidance systems were once restricted to the largest farms that could afford the technology required, but the affordability of basic lightbar guidance equipment now means it is within reach of every farmer.
 
ISOBUS offers better communication
It also helps that many agricultural machinery manufacturers have adopted the ISOBUS electronic data communication protocol in both tractors and farm implements. This not only means that one, sophisticated controller – often now supplied with your tractor – can be used to operate many different farming machines, it also allows additional plug-and-play systems offering everything from tractor guidance to automated boom control on crop sprayers to be added when required.
 
Practical experiences in Germany
One farmer that has embraced smart farming technologies is Christoph von Breitenbuch, who is vice-chairman of the DLG’s “Technology in arable farming” committee. Based at Parensen, in South Lower Saxony, Germany, von Breitenbuch, a graduate of agricultural engineering, is managing director of a farming collective with 486 ha and a farm service company that manages another 130 ha (www.Leine-Solling.com).
 
Von Breitenbuch is dedicated to using the latest the agricultural machinery and equipment to increase productivity and reduce costs.
 
“We started using advanced farming technology as part of our farm work in 2006,” he says. “Today our combine harvester not only has sensors to provide a yield map or moisture map, it can also drive in a straight line guided by GPS technology.”
 
Almost every operation on the farm benefits from smart farming systems, and GPS-guided steering is also used for ploughing and seed-bed preparation, planting seeds, fertilizer applications and crop spraying.
“Parallel tracking when we are working the soil makes the work faster because there is less overlap,” Von Breitenbuch says. “Consequently we have lower costs for staff and fuel, but it is also better for the soil as there are fewer passes of the tractor across the fields.”
 
When it is time to spread fertilizer, sow seeds or spray growing crops, the signals received by the GPS technology do more than just steer the tractor in straight lines.
“Using modern technology, our seed drill stops planting when it comes close enough to an area that has already been seeded, while our fertilizer spreader just works where no fertilizer has been spread before,” Von Breitenbuch says. “This means that we can work faster and at the same time spend less on seed and fertiliser. The same is true of crop protection work where the sprayer keeps the overlap of pesticides to a minimum.”
 
During the past three years von Breitenbuch has also started using sensor-collected data to improve the efficiency of his farming operation. Satellite photographs taken using special colour filters are used to analyze ground cover or chlorophyll levels in the crop.
 
“When we compare our yield maps with the satellite photos we can clearly see that they follow the same deviation in yield across the field,” he says. “This shows that we can trust the satellite photos for the automation of farm tasks like spraying and fertilizer spreading.
 
“Analyzing a satellite photo of a field of oilseed rape after the winter will not only allow us to apply sprays and fertilizer at variable rates depending on the expected effect on yield, but a realistic forecast of the final yield can be made and it becomes less risky to enter into forward-sale contracts.”
 
Von Breitenbuch now has all farm land scanned using an electric conductivity sensor to provide information on soil quality. This data is combined with all the other available information to produce a farm soil map that is the basis for all field work.
 
“The intelligent combination of a soil map with modern GPS and ISOBUS technology can probably bring great benefits to farmers everywhere in the world,” he says. “Those that are already working with this modern equipment are leaders of their profession in three ways: they know their fields much better because they have spent a lot of time collecting reliable and precise data; they work efficiently and with cost savings; and they can contribute much more to environmental efforts and initiatives than was possible in the past.”
 
Optimal field patterns
Dr Ole Green, who is the head of the research unit in the Department of Biosystems Engineering at Denmark’s Aarhus University, is one of Europe’s top smart farming specialists. One area of smart farming that he and his team have been studying closely is the way that agricultural machines use GPS guidance systems to navigate their way across fields.
 
“We know that with GPS auto-steering you have track lines so that there are no overlaps, but there is so much more potential for these systems,” he says. “We tend to have traditional patterns for field work, but maybe we should start looking at how much time we are spending on the headlands.
 
“Are we wasting our time doing irrelevant work? What should the distance be from the headland to the field boundary? And how much room do we really need for turning? By eliminating as much of the headland as possible, we have the potential to increase not only the overall machine capacity but also partly the yield.”
According to Green, many of today’s GPS auto-steering systems are doing little more than automating the way farmers normally drive their tractors.
“We think there is much more that they can do and that is why we are taking into account the field geometry, the operation of the implement and the characteristics of the tractor,” he says. “For example, there is no point setting the system up so that the auto-steering is trying to turn more sharply than the tractor can actually do.”
Green is working to develop algorithms that will optimize how the auto-steering system will cover a field. The main aims are to reduce the time spent on the headlands and to cover the whole area as quickly as possible, but there are other factors that should also be taken into account.
“It is useful if we can also tell the system where we want to enter the field and where we want to leave when the field is finished,” he says. “Instead of working the field tramline by tramline, the auto-steering can work to a pattern that means we finish exactly at the exit point and do not have to drive on the headlands any more than absolutely necessary.”
 
Taking the optimization process one stage further, Green is also looking at planning stops to reload with seed, or to unload harvested grain, into the auto-steering algorithms. If a farmer knows how many times he will have to refill the machine, and nominates an area for the loading to take place, a route can be calculated that ensures the machine is in the correct place to reload at the correct time.
 
Master-slave systems
Professor Hans W. Griepentrog, who is head of instrumentation and test engineering at the Institute for Agricultural Engineering, Stuttgart, Germany, is another academic expert working in the field of smart farming. His vision for the future does not rely on the use of ever-larger tractors and farm implements, but the introduction of the concept of master and slave tractors. The master tractor will have an operator at the wheel to supervise the work being carried out, but one or more slave tractors will automatically follow the master using sophisticated guidance equipment linking all machines.
 
The concept behind the master-slave system is not entirely new.
 
“There is a painting from 1887 that shows Tolstoi ploughing with one horse, but also leading a second horse pulling a harrow on the land that has already been ploughed,” Griepentrog says. “It is an interesting principle that is now being looked at by tractor manufacturers.
 
“Using smart farming technology, you can automate the slave tractor to follow the master and define the offset between the two so that they perform optimized operations and do not collide. At the end of the field you define different turning patterns so that the tractors do not meet.”
The main advantage of this scalable system is that it is highly productive because farmers can add more machines to work on a task, but need just one operator so labour costs are reduced.
Another benefit is that the system is highly flexible because a number of smaller machines can be used rather than one large tractor.
 
“This means big fields do not have advantages any more and hedges and ponds can even be reintroduced,” Griepentrog says. “This will have a big impact on biodiversity and will make the countryside more attractive again.”
Admitting that the public is not yet ready for automated tractors to work in the fields on their own, Griepentrog adds that any safety concerns about the master-slave system can probably be dealt with.
 
“Because we have a farmer or operator involved in the process, they can deal with any safety issues,” he says. “They will monitor the master machine and the slave machines, and if there are any problems he can solve them.”
 
A special show called “Smart Farming – Intelligent and sustainable plant production” at Agritechnica 2011 will provide visitors with a wealth of authoritative information and practical advice on current technologies, as well as news of the latest trends and innovations.