27th October 2017
SOYL to unveil FIVE precision innovations at Croptec
Precision crop production leaders, SOYL will officially unveil a quintet of new or improved precision tools at Croptec event this November.
"Croptec has become a significant event in the arable calendar and we are delighted to share five SOYL innovations with farmers this year," says SOYL commercial director, Simon Parrington.
1. 'ZoneSwitch' on/off control for granular applications
The ZoneSwitch is a new hardware development that allows the automatic switching on or off of granular applicators. Distinct from variable rate applications, which will vary the rate of applied product, the ZoneSwitch detects if a product should be applied or not. This allows the operator to automate patch application within fields and/or restrict application of products around features such as watercourses. Designed to work with the Custom Applications module in MySOYL, and compatible with the SOYL app iSOYL, the ZoneSwitch allows granular applications to be targeted in a straightforward way. The switch is compatible with all popular UK granular applicators from Stocks, Horstein and Techneat.
2. Unlocking the power of yield maps with MySOYL
SOYL’s web-based precision crop service MySOYL enables growers to make smarter business decisions based on data insight. The MySOYL feature, which enables yield data from any combine to be uploaded and integrated with existing crop data, has had some recent improvements:
- Performance maps are available where yield data is combined over multiple seasons. This shows which parts of fields are performing or underperforming, or inconsistent. This identifies which areas of the farm are contributing to gross margins and those where remedial action may be required.
- Yield maps can be adjusted to show actual ‘field offtake’. A combine yield map will record yield across the field but because of inaccuracies in measurement and calibration that total is never completely accurate. MySOYL users can now alter the yield measurement point which means the field offtake measurement is more accurate.
- Better data analysis of yield performance and improved screen displays.
3. iSOYL gets new 'Active' mode
A new ‘Active’ mode for the variable rate app iSOYL will be introduced at Croptec. It enables problems or features to be logged whilst spraying or applying fertiliser. This means growers can now more easily log features around the farm and make adjustments accordingly in variable rate application plans. This is useful for recording information such as patches of weeds, slug damage or watercourses. As well as being able to record these features using the app while walking the field, growers can now log features while they are in the cab and making applications using iSOYL.
4. How much rain did my farm get three seasons ago?
Do you agree that weather is the single greatest influence on your production in any given year? MySOYL now allows users to see past weather data for their farm. This information enables users to look back and see what actually happened for any particular given period of time. What were the levels of solar radiation like? What were temperatures like? Combined with yield data and NDVI (normalized difference vegetation index) imagery available next year, SOYL can help farmers make smarter decisions using the crop production data layers in MySOYL.
5. Variable rate nitrogen for spring barley
Over the last few years SOYL's technical team has been exploring ways of taking a variable rate nitrogen approach on spring barley crops. Satellite imagery to assess a crop’s nitrogen requirements will not work in the same way that it does on winter crops as most of the nitrogen is applied before the plant has grown enough to be accurately detected by remote sensing.
Therefore, the development team at SOYL has taken a different approach. They have found that overlaying layers of map data related to historic spring barley yields, soil surveys and satellite imagery will create areas of high and low yield potential. These different zones can then have variable treatments of high, low and ‘normal’ rates of nitrogen applied to see what the effects are on yield and nitrogen content of the crop.
Findings from the first two years of trials of this approach have shown that areas with high yield potential showed good yield increases from receiving additional nitrogen without compromising quality which was maintained at 1.6% (the market specification for malting barley contracts).
“We’ve always invested heavily to find solutions to help farmers meet the tough challenges of farming today and to extract maximum efficiency from every hectare. It’s great that five of our development projects are coming to fruition just in time for us to show growers at Croptec. Anyone who wants to learn more about these or any other aspect of precision should visit our stand,” concludes SOYL commercial director, Simon Parrington.
SOYL is at this year’s Croptec event on stand 1.90 in Hall 1.
