How precision farming technologies are successfully applied 5 km from the “yellow pavers”...

The farm of Varietal Seeds and Plant Protection EOOD is located only 5 km from the “yellow pavers” and in it corn, wheat, sunflower, peas and oats are grown on land with a total area of 20,000 decares this year. It was sown in the fall of 2012 using Trimble navigations, the Trimble AutopilotTM control, operating with an RTK accuracy of 2 cm.” The FmxTM display in combination with the AutopilotTM system increase the work efficiency and at the same time reduce the load on the mechanizers.” shared Kristiyan Yakhov - Head of Operations at the farm, whose role is to monitor the productivity of the machines so that he has direct observations of their operation with and without Trimble systems.Currently, the farm is running a spring Sowing corn fields as thanks to Autopilot control with RTK accuracy of 2 cm the work process continues and even at night, when the mechanizers continue to work on the plots with the same quality of work as during the day. “24 hour sowing allows us to process the plots faster, since in our region the weather is fickle and we never know when the rain will surprise us and we will not be able to finish sowing on time. So we are sure that we will sow quickly, and for us this is important, since our plots are fragmented and efficiency and quick response is important to us. With the Trimble GPS equipment, we can sow twice as fast as 4 years ago, when we were not working with 2 cm accuracy and automatic control, and the mechanizers used markers when sowing.” The FmxTM displays are mounted on the two New Holland and Case tractors, which carry out parallel sowing of corn. The FmxTM display supports the Vehicle Sync function, with which information about the work performed is exchanged in real time between the two machines so that they work simultaneously in the same field by moving in parallel, through one or several lines or starting from both ends without operators worrying that they will overlap their lines or that part of the plot will remain uncultivated. On the monitors in the two cabins, each of the mechanics sees, in addition to its tracks and processed lines, those of the other tractor in a different color, thus orienting itself in which line it is most convenient for him to start and continue working.” ConnectedFarm is a system that allows us to see all these lines and processes of both machines in real time from the office or from a more remote computer - so we are greatly facilitated in the management of our farm and in monitoring the operation of the machines and mechanizers.” shared Valeria Hineva. With ConnectedFarm all data is transferred wirelessly (without USB sticks or cables) for the treatments carried out to the FarmWorks Mapping agricultural software, thus monitoring the efficiency of the work and in two steps the data necessary for submission to the ISAC can be processed and submit to the civil service. Thus, close to the “yellow pavers” work on the farm is facilitated as a large part of it can be carried out remotely - this allows to control the treatments of several plots simultaneously - sowing spring crops on some and spraying wheat on others.To increase the spraying efficiency of the areas sown with wheat the latest acquisition in the farm is a self-propelled sprayer Berthoud RAPTOR 4240, with 28 meters of wings and computer control of the EC Tronic spray.” With the sprayer, we plan to process all 7,000 acres in less than a week.” The self-propelled sprayer is equipped with a Norac UC4+ wing height control system and a Trimble FieldIQ inlay control system, which controls the rate of applied preparations when spraying - so the spraying of wheat on the farm of Varietal seeds and plant protection is carried out from an equal distance of the wings from the crops, which at the first rod spraying with herbicides is 50 cm for all flights with wheat. the scattering of materials is the same everywhere.” Before the filling of the tank was getting slower, and now with the new machine and the automatic filling of the tank and mixing of the detergents allows us to effortlessly refill it and makes our work easier and more enjoyable” - Asen Asenov, sprayer operator for 20 years.