John Deere launches Harvest Profit in NZ & Australia
Recently released in Australia and New Zealand by John Deere, a unique new software platform offers near real time profitability monitoring across crops and individual paddocks.
Applying chemicals to arable or grassland crops has many variables — differing chemical formats and target volumes, and forward speeds that vary with undulating terrain.
The latest innovation from John Deere — its ExactApply spray nozzle — is said to increase flexibility and improve accuracy.
It has six nozzles mounted on a rotating turret, working with two electronically operated liquid control valves. The system can manually switch between two nozzles and independently adjust spray pressure and flow rates.
Flow rate is controlled by pulse wave modulation that enables a much wider range of spraying speeds and application rates, with speed from 10 to 30km/h at a constant pressure, or application rates of 100 to 300 litres/ha at constant forward speeds.
Interestingly, the system can also adjust flow and pressure to create a droplet size that is resistant to drift, which will prove useful in sensitive areas or changing weather.
Greater accuracy is achieved by adjusting flow rates to individual nozzles across the boom; this means greater flow is delivered to the end of the boom that is travelling faster on the outside of a curve, while a reduced flow is delivered to nozzles at the inside of the radius.
For long working days during ideal conditions, each nozzle is equipped with LED lighting for night-time spraying and a blockage detection system that advises operators of any interruption of liquid flows.
Meat co-operative, Alliance has met with a group of farmer shareholders, who oppose the sale of a controlling stake in the co-op to Irish company Dawn Meats.
Rollovers of quad bikes or ATVs towing calf milk trailers have typically prompted a Safety Alert from Safer Farms, the industry-led organisation dedicated to fostering a safer farming culture across New Zealand.
The Government has announced it has invested $8 million in lower methane dairy genetics research.
A group of Kiwi farmers are urging Alliance farmer-shareholders to vote against a deal that would see the red meat co-operative sell approximately $270 million in shares to Ireland's Dawn Meats.
In a few hundred words it's impossible to adequately describe the outstanding contribution that James Brendan Bolger made to New Zealand since he first entered politics in 1972.
Dawn Meats is set to increase its proposed investment in Alliance Group by up to $25 million following stronger than forecast year-end results by Alliance.
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