With harvest fast approaching, growers are reminded to check that everything is set up ready to go. While mechanical servicing of machinery may have been ticked off, growers should also get the tech side of their harvesting equipment sorted, before they need to jump in the cab.
FAR’s technology manager Chris Smith says that yield mapping on harvesters is a great way to assess field variability. “You have one chance a year to capture that data and the more years’ worth of yield data you have, the more valuable it becomes. When you get areas that are always higher yielding or lower yielding that becomes a powerful tool.”
Having multiple years of yield data helps to mitigate variability because of weather and seasonal events.
Chris has some tips to ensure that yield mapping data is collected and stored safely and accurately, so it can be a valuable tool for decision-making.
Pre-harvest tech checks:
- Start the harvest with an empty data card - save a copy of all previous data to your computer and then ‘clean’ the card, or buy a new one.
- Naming protocol: use the same name for the same paddock each year as this makes finding your data easier at the end of the harvest.
- Check the sensors are measuring flow and moisture correctly – for data integrity!
- Calibration – at the start of harvesting each crop, make sure you calibrate the flow sensor for the correct grain type and units.
- Operation setup – make sure the cutter bar width is correct, as well as flow delay is as accurate as possible.
- Data card check and back-up – confirm data is being logged by importing it into your mapping platform once you start the harvest...not at the end of the season!
- Backup the data as a raw format throughout the harvest to your laptop rather than waiting until the end of harvest. It pays to have more than one card.