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August 1998ON THE ROAD TO PRECISION FARMING - Yield Monitoring Systems for Non-Grain CropsTo achieve success in this new information age, farm managers need site-specific information describing the variability of important factors, including crop yield and crop quality. If one is to practice adjustable rate application of inputs, then site-specific crop yield and crop quality reflect the response to these inputs. Yield monitoring for non-grain crops concentrates primarily on measuring the weight of the crop moving through the harvesting equipment. While grain yield monitors collect data on weight and moisture, no similar quality data is available for most non-grain crops. The first yield monitor on the market for potatoes was from HarvestMaster*. The system has since been applied to sugarbeets and other root crops. Their yield mapping system weighs crops as they travel across the harvester. Weight measurement, combined with precise DGPS positioning, determine yield hundreds of times per acre. Each measurement is stored in the mobile GPS computer. The mobile GPS computer continually updates the operator with the current yield, average yield, current load total, acres harvested and harvester speed. The University of California has worked with the tomato industry to develop a yield monitor system for tomatoes. Similar in concept to the HarvestMaster system, it can be applied to any crop that travels along a conveyor chain. The yield monitoring system, marketed by Red Horse Technologies*, easily bolts on to the harvester, and is sold either complete or as a package to add your own equipment. The complete package includes: a DGPS receiver, a specifically designed, rugged computer, weight and groundspeed monitoring hardware, PCMCIA flash memory cards to store the computer's data, and software to analyze the data on your own computer at home or in the farm office. Less-expensive packages use some of your own existing equipment, such as a DGPS receiver or a laptop computer. TSI Montana* has recently entered the market with a range of yield monitors for non-grain crops, including root crops, forages and silage. The root crop and forage monitors are weight based using a scale is attached to the harvester or mower. This scale takes a weight for a predetermined distance. Groundspeed is monitored and used to correlate the weight with the distance traveled. This yield correlation is recorded along with GPS coordinates. A third sensor turns the distance measurement off or on when the header is raised or lowered. TSI's silage yield monitor mounts on any silage chopper using a blower. The system monitors flow volume through the blower and is specially designed not to inhibit the flow of silage. Flow volume is converted to yield and corrected using the measured silage moisture. Groundspeed measurements and GPS coordinates complete the available data. Sources of Information:
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