Those of you who have been to the farm may have noticed that some of our cropping beds are not perfectly straight. It is much harder than it may seem to keep beds straight in the field.
For the new field, I decided to call in the big guns. Louie Muller is a farmer from Woodland who brought his large, GPS- controlled tractor to the farm on Saturday. With this tractor he was able to make dead-straight beds for us. The tractor has an antenna on the roof of the cab, and an on-board computer steers the tractor. The accuracy is to less than an inch over the whole length of the field. The beds are now very straight, and it will be much easier to keep them straight with our tractor.
The next tractor, which we will need in a couple of years, will have this technology. It will allow us to cultivate more accurately and faster. The navigation system currently adds about $20,000 to the cost of the tractor. This is a great deal of money but many farmers feel it pays for itself.