Friday, September 14, 2012

We are waiting this morning for the dew to ‘burn off’, but that’s rather slow today with the cloudy skies.  I’m catching up some office work, writing weekly paychecks and paying bills.  Philip and John and catching up on the delivery of some contracted corn to GPC at Washington, Indiana.   Later today, if the rain holds off, we will begin cutting some soybeans.

Brad is here from JL Farm Equipment, Poseyville, Indiana, installing a device on Ross’ corn-head so that he can use AutoTrac in corn.  I have found the AutoTrac RowSense technology to be very helpful on the John Deere 9770 and 612C, and Ross is getting his machine updated today with an aftermarket package that will operate similarly.  The use of this guidance in the combine allows for the operator to more precisely observe the other complicated harvesting operations of the machine, and it comes in especially handy when unloading on-the-go.  Brad is installing little rod ‘feelers’ in one of the pointy snouts that will sense for the standing corn as the header glides through the field.  These sensors will tell the combine steering system where to go to follow the rows.

The blue rods are the new ‘feelers’ for Ross’ Geringhoff folding corn head.  These will glide along the standing corn stalks, and send information to the combine steering control system.

This is what the AutoTrac RowSense system looks like on our John Deere 612C corn head.

Using the new automated steering system, Ross should be a more comfortable combine operator.  We will know in a couple weeks when we return to the corn harvest.

The radar shows some rain to the west; we will see over the next few hours if that comes and stops the soybean harvest for today.