DATE:     4/9/04
CONTACT:  Dr. Ahmad Khalilian, (803) 284-3343, ext. 230;
          akhlln@clemson.edu
          Gilbert Miller, (803) 284-3343, ext. 225; gmll4@clemson.edu
WRITER:   Tom Lollis, (803) 284-3343, ext. 241; tlollis@clemson.edu

Field day at Edisto REC will
show tractor for hands-off work

     How automated steering system can be used for vegetables and row
crops will be highlighted May 6 at Blackville.

     BLACKVILLE -- If you are a farmer and want to see what precision
farming really means, stop by Clemson University's Edisto Research and
Education Center on May 6 and see some of the straightest rows you'll
find anywhere.
     Spring Field Day begins with registration at 9 a.m. and the
program at 10 o'clock. The day concludes with a lunch at 12:30 p.m.,
according to Gilbert Miller, Clemson Extension area vegetable
specialist.
     Participants will have a choice of two programs -- either small
grains or vegetables. Production and pest management will be discussed
at both sessions. Vegetable crops on the agenda include strawberries,
collards, watermelons and cantaloupes.
     The highlight of the day will be a precision agriculture
demonstration for vegetable and row crop production at 10 a.m.
     Clemson agricultural engineer Ahmad Khalilian will have on display
a tractor equipped with an automated system that frees the operator
from having to steer the tractor.
     Two South Carolina vegetable growers will be at the field day to
talk about their experiences in 2003 with autosteering systems.
     "These systems have been on the market for two or three years," he
said. "The one we are using is the Trimble AgGPS Autopilot RTK. It's
accurate to within an inch in the field."
     A computer stores information for each field. That makes it
possible to subsoil in the fall, return in the spring and plant
precisely on the subsoil furrow, cultivate or apply pesticides, and
harvest in the fall using the same traffic patterns from the previous
year.
     If a grower plants with four-row equipment, he can come back and
spray pesticides with 12-row or 16-row equipment and know that his
spray nozzles will be positioned exactly where they need to be.
     "We are also using it to lay out drip irrigation," said Khalilian.
"It allows us to put the drip tape underground and know exactly where
it is for later tillage operations so we don't damage the tape."
      Key to the accuracy is the Global Positioning System (GPS). A GPS
sensor on the tractor talks to both GPS satellites orbiting the Earth
and a base tower set up on the farm.
     "Some farmers in Alabama are using a 100-foot base tower and
sharing it over an area of about 340,000 acres," said Khalilian.
     Autosteering tractor systems would be a big benefit to South
Carolina peanut growers, according to Jay Chapin, Clemson Extension
entomologist.
     "At harvest it can be hard to find the rows. Digging right on row
is very important and can mean the difference between profit and loss,"
he said.
     Khalilian said that autosteering works well in fields where rows
can be planted in a straight line or curved in a center pivot system.
However, it does not work in a contoured field where a lot of turning
is required. He hopes to solve that problem.
                                END