Precision Farming Project: Yield improvement & economic analysis

[Chaki]

Let's go deeper into Precision Farming! We show you new features and tell you what to expect in our next project update.

[Emil Jørgensen]

Next time on the blog...
...we'll tell you the release date!

[this_is_gav]

This looks better and better with each post.

A live mini map too. Hopefully it goes beyond just Precision Farming and can be extended to the rest of the game too, with or without PF.

I'm pleased it's not just another fixed percentage yield boost and that FS seems to be moving away from that.

[JonasKaizer]

This is so exciting! Really like the summary of the field. Nice to see how much we actually make each harvest. I’m intrigued to see what the RTK station is all about.

[Miketeg]

This is the best news since many months regarding this game! Love to see this franchise finally working on the "simulation" part of the game!

That also give us an idea on what they are focusing for the next version of FS!

[Illinois Farmer]

This is so exciting! Really like the summary of the field. Nice to see how much we actually make each harvest. I’m intrigued to see what the RTK station is all about.

If it is similar to what we have here, then it is a more accurate way for gps systems. The rtk systems get mounted on a grain leg, or harvester, so the gps can pick up the signal better and more accurate than using satellites. When just using satellites, they are always changing and when you leave a field for a night and come back your gps lines could be off a few feet.

[Chef93]

I may be nitpicking here, but since I know Giants tends to care about being accurate I thought I would chime in for a moment on naming. For a RTK solution you need a minimum of 2 GPS receivers. Both could be called a RTK Station. However the static location is referred to as a "Base Station" (which can be either real or virtual), and a "Rover Station". The Base Station is the static location, the one you would place on your farm for instance. The Rover is the one that goes on the mobile platform. So while it may be technically correct to call the one placed at a farm a "RTK Station", the mobile one could also be described as such, and there is no differentiation when using that name.

Another interesting thing to look into are virtual base stations. In the US these are becoming more of the norm. They are significantly less accurate than a local base station solution, but well within the accuracy range needed for farming. The cost differential is the key thing here though. A local base station will run around $20-30k and may require a specific radio license, while a virtual base station can cost you about $200 (in additional cost) for equipment and a small monthly fee for access to the network.

As far as accuracy goes. A properly setup local base station can deliver repeatable accuracy between .01-.02 feet. Virtual base stations are generally around .04-.10 feet.

Just for the sake of saying it. I have about 22 years of practicing high accuracy/precision GPS work as a Land Surveyor.

[FarmerJohn89]

I thought the whole point of Precision farming was that you could get the whole field up to maximum yield but yet the last pictures shows the yield map and it still shows the bottom of the field performing better than the top what was the point of all that extra hassle if you haven't managed to improve the top of the field ?
From what I understand the fertiliser spreader should of been automatically applying less nitrogen to the bottom of the field and a normal amount to the middle and adding extra to the top corner to help evening out the field. Or am I wrong with that logic?
So far I'm glad to see the Live map this should help a lot and I hope in the next FS game that the base map will also change as you join fields together or make new ones.
Apart from that I see very little actual new gameplay mechanics just a whole lot more information.

[Canadian Eggs]

You will never in real life get the same yield across every area of a field, so the one corner being of lower yield is realistic. Different soil types across the map would account for that difference in yield. All in all, it's a great addition to the game. Couple this with dynamic terrain hopefully in the future and it's a big step forward.

[FarmerJohn89]

You will never in real life get the same yield across every area of a field, so the one corner being of lower yield is realistic. Different soil types across the map would account for that difference in yield. All in all, it's a great addition to the game. Couple this with dynamic terrain hopefully in the future and it's a big step forward.

That's exactly the point of precision farming though!
It highlights the different parts of the fields and treats them differently so they perform much better than if you just gave them a blanket application of lime or nitrogen.
So with Precision farming the entire field should perform much more consistently.

[Illinois Farmer]

You can use precision farming all you want, but you still won't have exactly the same yields acid every area of the field. The most you can hope for is improve yields, but it will never be exactly the same.

[Miketeg]

I hope they will rework the weed aspect of the game, if not, all this will be nothing...

I know Seasons fixed it (kind of), but Giants needs to change the way it works in vanilla game.

[eric21]

Hopefully this opens the door for some interesting mods or equipment with this. Some users might be put off because of the technical things

[michele1048]

hi, it reminds me of the old soilmod from fs15

[Elspoox]

This reminds me of a great mod from FS15;), Soil mod was so addicting!