[AT] list and a Ramble about the change of farming and tractors.

[Cecil R Bearden]

Charlie:
Here in OK, you would have to be farming 10,000 acres to afford that 
kind of equipment.  Hay is the best crop in this area.  I am trying to 
get a GPS guide system that I can use in the nightime or late evening.  
Foam markers would have to have glow in the dark foam so I could see it 
in the dark....

Cecil in OKla


On 4/4/2013 10:52 PM, charlie hill wrote:
> Cecil,  I wonder if there is an internet forum somewhere or a yahoo group or
> something
> where you might find someone in another area that could help you with that?
> Or maybe on one of the modern farming forums  or surveyors forums, someone
> might have that problem figured out?
>
> As for surveyors.  I can't find one around here that is willing to go back
> and use old
> maps and old landmarks to accurately run out some lines on our farm.  They
> all want to
> work off of someone else's, more recent survey and a couple of the ones
> around the farm
> that I know of are not accurate because of folks cheating on lines and
> surveyors assuming those
> lines are correct (not doing their work).   I took some deed plotting
> software (that I no longer have)
> and aerial photos and old maps and plotted lines on transparency film that
> precisely match
> the old maps up to where my daddy told me our lines were but I can't find a
> surveyor that is
> willing to do the work to figure it all out.  With the equipment that exists
> now and given the fact
> that there are 4 or 5 known control points and lines that match up with the
> old map of our farm and
> 4 other tracts around it, it should be easy.   I could do it in a heartbeat
> if I had modern GPS surveying
> equipment and a surveyors license but I don't.
>
> Back to your need for ag gps.  I know another farmer, who retired last year.
> He farmed about 5,000
> acres of corn, soybeans, potatoes and cabbage. (total acres).  His combines
> and tractors were all gps
> equipped from the early years of AG GPS.   He had yield monitors on his
> combines and at the end of
> the year he could map the yield of his fields in much the same way as you
> would do a TOPO map.
> He would then map his soil samples to match up with the yield maps and his
> fertilizer equipment would
> selectively adjust fertilizer an lime application to correct the issues he
> found on the yield maps.
> I would give anything to have farmed in a time when you could do those
> things.
>
> Charlie
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Cecil R Bearden
> Sent: Thursday, April 04, 2013 8:19 PM
> To: Antique tractor email discussion group
> Subject: Re: [AT] list and a Ramble about the change of farming and
> tractors.
>
> Charlie:
> A couple of years ago I bought a mini netbook computer and the GPS
> software that was written by a guy up north to take a good GPS antenna
> and do spraying or fertilizing.  It was a great program, but by the
> time  I got around to trying it out, I did not have the money to buy the
> good GPS antenna required.  I trazveled over the same route with my
> antenna and was 15 ft off....!!!  I had centimeter level accuracy in my
> surveying equipment, but could not get anyone willing to help me connect
> it up without paying over $1k for their services.   I can connect up a
> lot of high tech stuff, but I did not have the cabling.   The %$#^&
> cables cost as much as the software.!!
>
>      I probably have over $20K in old Trimble equipment setting here that
> is obsolete because of software or firmware, but it is still the same
> thing being used today, just in a different case.   I just need to spray
> and fertilize about 300 aces a year.  I cannot even justify the cost of
> a foam marker.  But, I know that I have the equipment here to use my
> Topcon or Trimble  survey units and get within 2 inches.  The only
> reason we have to upgrade this equipment is someone came out with
> another bell or whistle and made the earlier software not compatible...
>
> I have a Topcon system that cost me about $8k when I bought it.  I then
> had to purchase another $2K controller for it because the software to
> survey in OK would not load into the controller furnished with it.
> While my system is considered obsolete, If I set up over a known point,
> I can get elevations and locations within 1/2 inch over 4 miles away
> from the base station, definitely good enough for storm water
> engineering.  However, if I have any problems with it, I have no one to
> call because all the old guys that knew how to trouble shoot this
> equipment and operate this software are no longer in the business.  They
> left and went to another company.  Their 3 years were up.  Their
> replacement won't talk to you unless you buy another piece of new equipment.
>
> That JD GPS equipment is probably the best known,  I think that Trimble
> probably has the most extensive  background in GPS mapping, They do not
> change their systems when they come out with an upgrades system, and
> their software for the older units is free.  However, I cannot get the
> ag software for my surveying units.  Again just need someone familiar
> with the system who won't charge an arm and a leg for the help...  I
> want the GPS spraying system for spraying at night.  During the day the
> wind is too bad here...
>
> Cecil in OKla
>
> On 4/4/2013 5:27 PM, charlie hill wrote:
>> When I was a kid the one job my dad would never let me do was bed up his
>> tobacco rows.
>> He wanted them to be straight and he didn't trust anyone else to do it.
>> Jump forward a half
>> century.  I know a lady who at the age of about 45 married a farmer who
>> tends about 3000 acres.
>> Up until she married him she had never driven anything larger or more
>> complicated than a mini-van
>> and she wasn't particularly talented at that.  Within a year of their
>> being
>> married she was bedding up
>> cotton rows with a 12 row (I think it's 12, maybe more) bedder.  The
>> reason
>> she can do that is GPS.
>> Every one of his fields are mapped on GPS.   All she has to do is drive
>> the
>> tractor to the field and get it
>> near a corner, hit the button and the massive JD and GPS do the rest.  It
>> will run rows half a mile long and
>> not be off more than an inch or so (maybe less) from one end to the other.
>> When the tractor nears the end
>> of the row an alarm goes off.  She takes over the controls and turns it
>> around, and gets it close to lined up.
>> She hits the GPS button again and it goes to the other end while she reads
>> her book or talks on the phone.
>> It's not old school farming but it surely is efficient.
>>
>> Charlie
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Al Jones
>> Sent: Thursday, April 04, 2013 5:44 PM
>> To: Antique tractor email discussion group
>> Subject: Re: [AT] list and a Ramble about the change of farming and
>> tractors.
>>
>> As far as modern, working tractors go, I think what you're seeing is just
>> "progress."  Technology is continuing to advance and it's just spilling
>> over
>> into farm machinery.  I don't know about the yuppie farmers but the ones
>> really doing it for a living actually have a use for a lot of the bells
>> and
>> whistles.  A guy was talking to me about the GPS, auto steer, and other
>> goodies the other day. He was talking about when personal computers first
>> came out, everyone said the farmer had no use for it.  Now most farmers
>> use
>> one daily.  The same thing is coming true with GPS.  If a farmer can save
>> 10-20 dollars an acre on chemicals due to more accurately applying them
>> with
>> a guidance system, and he farms 1000 acres, that's 10-20 thousand dollars.
>> Doesn't take long to justify all those goodies at that rate.
>>
>> Will we be collecting 2013 model tractors in 50 years? Doubt it.  And
>> technically, that 1960's 4020 really is an antique now.  For example, the
>> Farmall 806 and 706 are 50 years old this year. In 1995, when I found the
>> ATIS list, my Super A was 47 years old.
>>
>> In some ways, I hate to say it but technology has passed the email
>> listserv.
>> Farmallcub.com, redpowermagazine.com, and other websites are good
>> examples.
>> I read something the other day that social media like facebook is making
>> email obsolete.  I expect we'll see that same trend with tractor sites
>> soon.
>>
>> A;
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Cecil R Bearden <crbearden at copper.net>
>>> Sent: Apr 4, 2013 10:30 AM
>>> To: Antique tractor email discussion group <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
>>> Subject: Re: [AT] list and a Ramble about the change of farming and
>>> tractors.
>>>
>>> Charlie:
>>> If the original poster would let us know what the solution was, then we
>>> could put that into the "virtual" knowledge base.  I wonder what is
>>> going to happen to this list, as there are not many new guys coming on.
>>> I look at the TractorBynet forum once in a while, and there is so many
>>> mistakes being made that I have already experienced.  If I do post to
>>> it, I wonder if I come off as a know it all.   That forum also seems
>>> like it has a lot of guys with late model tractors.  Ones that I could
>>> pick up and stack on top of the hay with my loaders......!!  I just have
>>> not accepted these small tractors yet.   My Dad used to say that they
>>> were good for running around under the house looking for eggs..!!!   Dad
>>> spent a lot of time in the Arkansas Bottoms as a child.  I have used
>>> that expression and got some really weird looks!!
>>>
>>> Back in the 70's when everything was going big big HP, and dealers were
>>> limit ed on the number of units (rationed) they could get in a year, the
>>> "experts" said this would create a shortage of tractors in the 20 to 60
>>> hp range.   Boy did they hit that nail on the Head!!  The other thing
>>> that no one envisioned, was these new operators are used to cabs and air
>>> conditioning.   I recently sold a 4010 JD on LPgas, a great utility
>>> tractor.  for $3000.  I spent a fortune on advertising trying to sell
>>> it, and finally went to auction.  I could not make these new guys
>>> understand how to fill an LP tractor.   One of the problems, while they
>>> liked the idea of only spending $2.00 / gallon for fuel, they did not
>>> want to invest $400 in a tank and then come up with another $400 to fill
>>> it. They could just go by the local C-store and get 10 gallons of
>>> Diesel.   The other was the lack of a cab.  I overheard a lady in her
>>> 50's ???  talk about mowing with a bush hog for 10 hours and coming in
>>> covered in dirt and itching for days when you hit a bunch of sticker
>>> weeds.   Here in OK with our 20mph minimum wind, a cab is now standard
>>> equipment.   I guess our old antique tractors of the 60's have really
>>> become antique!!!   I remember when A-C came out with the D21, I wanted
>>> to get into Farming...!! Now, a large tractor like that is not necessary
>>> since everything is going to No-till here.....
>>>
>>> I am rambling here while my coffee is getting cold....  I gotta quit
>>> sitting up watching those old movies.  Black & White seems normal to
>>> me!!!!
>>>
>>> Cecil in OKla
>>>
>>>
>>> On 4/4/2013 7:55 AM, Charlie V wrote:
>>>> Got up on the wrong side of your cup of coffee today, John?  GRRRRRRR!.
>>>>
>>>> Sorry.  Just had to do that.  I somewhat agree with you.  I cannot help
>>>> notice in a situation where someone posts a question--Say a tractor will
>>>> not start.  Ten replys are posted.  Some not too related, but some very
>>>> on
>>>> target.  Then the original poster is never heard from again.  It would
>>>> be
>>>> a
>>>> nice courtesy it the original poster would come back in a few days and
>>>> let
>>>> everyone know if his tractor is now running, and if he knows , what
>>>> actually did the trick.
>>>>
>>>> Just my 1.25697 cents.
>>>>
>>>> Charlie V.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Wed, Apr 3, 2013 at 9:01 PM, <jtchall at nc.rr.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> You know, It’s getting really tiring to post help on the list and never
>>>>> get acknowledged for it. Especially when you go to the trouble of
>>>>> posting
>>>>> links that may help folks with a problem. I have gotten to the point I
>>>>> pretty much refuse to help some folks as they never seem to thank
>>>>> anyone
>>>>> or
>>>>> fail to heed the advice they are given. It’s sad to see the knowledge
>>>>> base
>>>>> we have dwindling away.
>>>>>
>>>>> John Hall
>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>>
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