Guidance System For Grain Drills

Guidance System For Grain Drills GUIDANCE SYSTEMS Guidance Systems 24-5-13 One of the hottest new inventions at the recent Western Canada Farm Progress Show in Regina, Sask., was a new guidance system for grain drills that automatically keeps drill openers between the stubble rows left by the previous crop. "It has a lot of different benefits and they all add up to one thing û more profit per acre," says inventor Norbert Beaujot of Langbank, Sask. The patent pending system consists of a 6-ft. long hitch that replaces the tractor drawbar and, with the aid of a hydraulic cylinder, is able to move the drill up to 30 in. left to right. Three pairs of 16-in. dia. furrow-sensing discs mount ahead of the drill û one set in the middle and the other two about 1 ft. from each end. Each pair of discs is spaced 3 in. apart. They're designed to straddle the stubble rows. Sensors mounted on the 6-ft. long hitch are wired to the discs. They sense if the discs slip off the row and shift the hitch accordingly. A light bar in the tractor cab shows the driver where the hitch is in relation to the tractor center at all times. "It eliminates a lot of costs associated with misses and overlaps and also solves many other problems with direct or no-till seeding," says inventor Norbert Beaujot. "I've used it on my farm for three years to plant wheat, flax, barley and canola. I came up with the idea because there's no way to manually keep a grain drill seeding between rows, especially if you're pulling a 40-ft. drill behind a 250 hp tractor. The light bar in the cab tells the driver roughly where to steer while the hitch fine-tunes the location of the drill. "Even if you don't direct seed your crops into standing stubble, you can still use the outside sets of discs to keep your drill running straight and prevent misses and overlaps. The operator can flip a switch to activate whichever pair of discs he wants. On my farm I use the two outside pairs of discs mainly to lay out the field the first time I go around the field. After making one pass, I turn at the end of the field and drop the outside set of discs into the last row furrow that I just made. I do that one year out of five to get the fields all nice and straight. Then the next four years I seed between the rows." Beaujot says the guidance system can be adapted to fit all tractor brands and models. Sells for about $6,000 (Canadian). Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Straw Track Mfg. Inc., Box 122, Langbank, Sask., Canada S0G 2X0 (ph 306 538-4441; E-mail: trebron@mailcity.com).

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