OptiSurface in Press: PrecisionAg Buyer's Guide - How to Improve Farm Profit With GPS Landforming
OptiSurface Software has created over 400,000 acres of GPS landform designs around the world. Here are the top 8 things we have learned.
- Water is king. 80% of yield variability & profit loss is
due to too much or too little water. Yield maps show this. Focus on optimizing water
management first.
- Ponding kills profits.
If water is standing in your fields 24 hrs after rainfall or irrigation, it is
killing your profits. Typically 8%/day yield loss plus nitrogen loss, increased
pest & disease, delayed planting, spraying & harvesting.
- Subsurface (Tile) drainage is good but expensive, typically has lower ROI than GPS landforming
and does not work well on heavy soils or limited elevation relief.
- Ditching is good but can be a pain especially if they take out valuable crop area or restrict machinery access.
- Surface drainage and irrigation problems can be solved with GPS landforming at low cost. Proven in many crops and farming styles, irrigated and unirrigated
- Lasers are dead. They only work in a straight plane. GPS allows you to follow curved topography with curved design surfaces.
- Save up to 80% on earthworks and topsoil movement with OptiSurface designs & GPS machine control compared to other methods.
- Software is not equal. Our competitors claim to have the same capability but they are weak imitators. E.g. Trimble WM-Form produced 1000% more earthworks than OptiSurface on a recent drainage case study.