The farmland, in and of itself, is an investment. If you happen to be residing in a rural area as a farmer, it is of paramount importance that you commit a good amount of time as well as attention to protecting and securing your financial future. After all, the tools that will make your farmland good and operational for the entire year are not even expensive.
Many people find this very baffling. If we begin to tell them that GPS antennas and other similar technologies can be advantageous to their farming activities, they tend to become apprehensive about it. They find it perplexing and will remain so until such time that we explain to them how then they will begin to see and understand why. Here are prime examples of how GPS can work to the advantage of rural farmlands.
Minimizes the Need for Manual Labor for Manning Tractor
It is normal for the big names in the farming industry to manage scores to hundreds of acres of agricultural land. Needless to say, they require all the help they can get to efficiently manage the vast areas of land they have. This need has necessitated the use of efficient tracking and monitoring devices and this is where the application of GPS technologies comes into the picture. The technology itself can simplify various farming and agricultural tasks, and they include:
- Cultivating
- Pest Control
- Fertilizing
- Harvesting
Agricultural centers can take advantage of GPS antenna tracking and monitoring systems to help them determine which routes their tractors will use. Hence, helping them save on their most valuable resource, which is time and money, by reducing fuel consumption costs. It also alleviates the need for additional manual labor.
Focus on Regions That Require More Intensive Crop Dusting
When it comes to managing crops, there are a handful of essential elements that need to be in place such as crop dusting. Crop dusting will help farmers determine the amount of success or the gravity of failure that one can anticipate from planted crops.
Taking into account the negative impact they can inflict on the surrounding environment and the crops themselves, it necessitates farmers to find ways they can minimize treating regions that have remained uninfected.
With GPS antenna, tracking, and similar technology solutions in place, farmers/workers can have a seamless way of recording the exact geographic location of problem areas (regions infested by insects or pests.). They can take advantage of this data to only treat the problem areas. Thus, taking away the need to treat the entire farm, which is unnecessary, sparing the health of uninfected plants.
Crop Monitoring Through Landmarks and Geofencing
GPS-based technologies can be taken advantage of in the creation of geofences and landmarks that may surround specific geographic locations. The information used here can be utilized in zoning specific regions of a farm, which significantly helps in providing information with regard to the possible crop yields.
- Soil sampling
- Crop yields
- Feeding schedules
The information obtained here will help determine whether or not a particular crop is performing well or whatnot. All information that gives out a descriptive quality of the soil and its natural nutrients as well as the amount and concentration of fertilizer that a particular crop may consume or treatments it may need to go through can be taken into consideration for future planting.
Precision Plowing
Before the popularity of GPS technology, tractor operators would usually rely on available visual cues just so they can keep their furrows aligned. Regardless if they are straight or in line with the contours of the field itself, making the most out of available land necessitates attention and focus to guide the plow.
GPS antenna and other similar automatic steering systems can help farmworkers in creating furrows in their fields with millimeter precision.
Efficiency
Like every other business, the efficient use of available resources is a top requisite for a successful and profitable farming method. GPS systems offer us a handful of cost-effective alternatives to traditional planting methods and harvesting crops, which yields to lower production costs.
Lower production costs in farming translate to higher potential profits. A seasoned worker on a farm will agree with us in saying that a higher profit margin compensates for the difference between a bad farming year and a good farming year. For most farmers, this reason alone is enough for them to start pondering on this technology and eventually embrace it.