Farm GPS guidance was invented out of frustration with Foam Markers, also because Super Mario Cart is fun

Today was a beautiful day. It started out with frost on the windshield, was shirt sleeves by noon, and ended with it just cool enough for a fire. Of course I will not sleep tonight as the house will be too darned hot...

But, that is just a little negativity slipping in.

I ran the venerable GatorSprayer today. Old John Deere Gators are really kind of crap. No suspension and gutless. But, you think you can use it for real work because it is such a good idea.

Turning my University surplus Gator into a sprayer was very handy. Using it for a sprayer always ends badly. Using it to haul my toolbox around or give rides to Rosco usually ends well. As my dear departed mother used to say, "poop people have poor ways..."

My goal today was to spray two small hay fields and move my grain drill to my planting job. The two hay fields, which probably total ten acres, and are five miles apart are plagued with black berries. Our policy of just ignoring the black berries and hoping they will disappear on their own did not work. Trying to give the hay fields to someone else did not work. Pulling black berries in the spring is not fun and doesn't really solve the problem.

Of course the foam maker quit. I have a Salvarani Foam marker which worked really well for a year. It now buzzes and the tank pressurizes but no foam comes out. I need to disassemble it but lack the motivation.

Instead I worked on my GPS. I have a Novatel Smart 6L and the FarmerGPS bluetooth boom sensor paired with a MicroTrak MT3405F which I bought surplus and has been discontinued. It has dual displays so you can read flow rate and speed or acres or gallons at the same time.

I have a Getac tablet to run FarmerGPS and I screwed up by clicking Transfer License instead of Enter Registration. Easy to do, if you are a moron. I have to enter the registration number every time I start the program which is annoying. I have another working tablet and a Novatel SmartAg but they are paired with a different controller and I want to leave them in the grain drill tractor. It is a pain in the but to change antennas and computers and comports and USB to serial adapters in bright sunlight when you can't see what you are doing.

I loaded up the Gator and a tank of water and went to work. I am using a product called Vastlan which is a Triclopyr and not volatile like Crossbow. Is good on blackberries and broadleaf weeds. There are two many filberts and grapes to use Crossbow in my neighborhood. Of course Vastlan is really expensive...

The GPS would not work. This is a decent antenna. I laid out AB lines going East to West. I would get on a line and then the line would jump ten foot North or South and then maybe jump back or maybe just wander. I could see my track and it is only a 15 foot boom but it was quite annoying. Then I discovered my rate was off. It was stuck at high flow and trying to drive 10 mph resulted in me hitting a rut so hard I busted the cab mounts on one side. Of course the field is fertilized and cut in circles and I was going back and forth. 

My Getac tablet running FarmerGPS with my home built mount. My cab is a mess.

Finally I discovered that I had the controller set at 20 gallons per acre instead of 10 and I was overlapping. The overlap was ok because the outside spray tip kept plugging.

Then the neighbor lady wanted advice on farming her ten acres. This was ok as she is a feed customer and generally nice. I wouldn't mind redoing her pastures but it is ten acres in three fenced sections. Ouch...

The next field was five miles away. This went better as I could go in circles for most of it and then pick back and forth sections according to how the field was shaped and how well I could see my tracks. But, then I mixed up too much spray.

I finished that field at 2:30 p.m. and went home to get the drill moved. The next field was an hour away at the White 2-155's blazing top speed of 18 mph and the fact that I wanted to avoid town and a steep hill. So I took the scenic route.

The long way is better in many ways but it does have a couple miles of high traffic and slight hills and corners so it is hard to get over for traffic. I got a cautious driver behind me who would not pass. I couldn't see traffic behind her and I wanted to get to my job. When I turned off the main highway it looked like the line of cars behind me stretched for miles. I hate to be that farmer but sometimes it happens.

My wheat planting job looks like a good job. The ground is perfect. I only planted a few acres to get the drill set as I still had to empty my sprayer tank. I had added a chemical to kill Queen Ann's Lace and to also enhance the Vastlan and it required constant agitation. It was probably not a good combo.

When I got home it was near dark so the chemical probably won't work as the plants were shutting down. I have a Timothy field that has horsetail rush and blackberries invading so I decided to empty the tank there. The GPS started working. I have no idea why. 

I feel that I got quit a bit done regardless of the problems. I had to spray the blackberries before winter I just hope the field is not too streaked from my misapplication of chemicals.

I feel people in the neighborhood think I am one of those rich farmers because I have such modern equipment. Everyone should have a homebuilt Gator Sprayer and a fine pickup to haul it around with.