Technology is every where and believe it or not that even includes on the farm. The technology that is used today is further advanced than when my dad was farming. We currently have on the farm four tractors that run with GPS. And believe it or not those tractors drive themselves (except they can't turn corners...so the farmer still comes in handy).
We have three pivots that can be ran by just one phone call to them and one pivot that we can run from the computer.
We also have a combine that runs itself and can tell you how many bushels per acre it is getting, and the moisture content of that particular crop.
And last but not least, we can watch the weather radar on our cell phones.
I am personally amazed by how things are now run on the farm. I don't know that the technology makes the farmer go any faster or provide better results than the old way of farming, but it sure is nice to have some of the questions answered before you show up to the co-op to deliver your product. My husband says that the technology improves accuracy and decrease fatigue resulting in longer days with increased productivity. But this is just all in a days work of being a farmer.
My husband had to wake up at 1215am to go shut off flood irrigation. With flood irrigation he is the technology at work. Then he came home but was up and out the door again at 5 am to go to another piece of ground with flood irrigation. He had to walk the rows to make sure that the water was getting completely through the rows. When he does this he looking to see if he has to shut off gates on the irrigation pipe (the water has made it completely down that row) or if he needs to open them up more so the water can get down the row.
He wants to make sure that the water gets to the end of each row so that he knows all the corn has gotten a good drink. After checking the flood irrigation he was then off to check the pivots on other pieces of farm ground. When he goes to each field he drives his four wheeler down a pivot road made especially just to get to the pivot motor in the center of the corn field. Once there he checks oil levels in the motor, water flow, meaning how much water is making it from the well to the pivot itself, pivot pressure, which is making sure you don't have a leak in the pivot, and checking voltage. Checking voltage is important because if the voltage is to high or to low it can cause damage to the system. He checked 9 total pivots this morning. This takes him approximately 2 hours if everything is running correctly. But as I have learned in this short time being on the farm...that is not always the case.
Upon arriving at his 4th pivot this morning he was greeted by the sight that stated this pivot had not moved since yesterday. It had run in one place for about 12 hours. So he went to the motor and did all of his checks and found out the motor was fine but had to go to the control panel to try and override the forward motion of the pivot to see what tower was malfunctioning. He found out that the fourth tower from the end was the problem child. He knew this because overriding the system, that tower did not move with the rest of the other towers. Now the walk to that tower began. Once there he noticed the flat tire and broken drive shaft. So being the diligent farmer he is, he investigated further and noticed that a gear box was broken as well. He then took the long walk back to the control panel and jumped into his pick up. He finished his rounds, then went to get parts to fix the broken pivot tower. He stopped by the farm, picked up his dad and went back to the pivot to fix it.
After getting the pivot up and running again then it was time for loading a semi truck with alfalfa hay. They loaded around 700 small square bales onto the semi. It took about 2 hours to get the truck loaded. The alfalfa is headed to a horse farm in Texas.
My husband then went and grabbed the tractor and dirt mover. He swung by the house to pick up his little side kick. It is nice to be able to let my son ride with his dad whenever he gets the chance. I think they both enjoy the guy time. They then proceeded to the field to move dirt. The purpose of moving dirt was to improve water drainage on the field. Things were going well until a hydraulic hose blew on the dirt mover (scraper as it is called). My husband's father came out to the field and helped fix the hose. When the hose was fixed it was time to go check irrigation again. This time when he checked irrigation everything was working correctly. Then it was back to the field to try and finish moving dirt. Not long after getting back into the tractor another hydraulic hose blew on the scraper. It was a different hose this time. Again my husbands father came out to the field but this time to pick them up. They couldn't fix this hose because the parts store had closed for the day. They went back to the farm, loaded up in the pick up, came home and had dinner. Then it was back out to a flood irrigation field to mess with more gates. After that it was time for a shower, working in the office and helping write this post.
And one would think that since he is home now his day is done, but before he goes to bed this evening it is back out to the field to check the gates again. So really this post could go on for days because in all actuality a farmer's work is never done.
No comments:
Post a Comment