Trimble steers towards auto solutions

As the buzz on drones slowly wanes, the focus in agricultural technology is now shifting to autonomous or semi-autonomous offerings, according to precision agriculture experts.

Trimble Agriculture sales manager for Asia Pacific, Adam Wall, says auto or assisted solutions would be invaluable for machine operators, with capabilities such as automating turns at the headland.

“This year at the field days it seems to be all about autonomy,” Wall says.

“The last few years it’s been all about drones.

“At Trimble, we are going to tread carefully. Our customers rely on Trimble every day to provide reliable and proven solutions - whether that is Autopilot or an assisted steering system, such as EZ-Pilot or EZ-Steer.”

Trimble’s AutoPilot functionality has now been extended with Trimble’s end-of-row turn technology, NextSwath.

NextSwath automatically calculates and executes the best possible path to turn the farm vehicle around and approach the next crop row.

It supports most makes and models of machinery found operating in the Australian market today.

“NextSwath has been well received in most markets,” Wall says.

He was a guest speaker at a precision agriculture field day held in late August this year at Jerilderie, in southern NSW.

Trimble released its own concept autonomous tractor at the company’s Dimensions conference in the US late last year. It followed radical changes to the provision of satellite augmented corrections by Trimble over the past five years.

The company invested significantly in developing the Trimble RTX Correction Service. This has provided growers access to a year-on-year repeatable accurate GNSS service no matter their location.

All about the data

Wall says the recent acquisition of German agricultural electronics company Müller-Elektronik gave Trimble a platform to extend its ISOBUS portfolio.

“Growers will see more compatibility with a wider, varying range of equipment from Europe, North America or even built locally in Australia,” he says.

“Agronomic and precision agriculture advice is morphing together – agronomists, chemical and fertiliser companies all want to have a relationship with growers, and they all want to offer a complete solution.

“Growers are looking for solution focused products and value-added services to generate information based insights.

“In the future it will be about using that data in collaboration with key decision makers within your business to make profitable decisions. There is no point collecting the data forever and a day – there has to be a common goal to utilising that data.”

Wall says most air seeders sold in Australia now are mechanically able to generate variable rate data.

“Just about everyone collects some form of data now, whether that is yield, applied or coverage data but what do you do with it?” he asks.

“How many customers are analysing that data? Less than half. How many customers are working with trusted partners to generate profitability scenarios? Even less.

“There must be a reason to leverage an agri decision support service to generate profitable outcomes using your data.”

Wall says Trimble’s Ag Software allows operators to manage multiple farms simultaneously, enable prescription batch processing, create customer reports and seamlessly collaborate with trusted grower partners.