Production of commercial vegetables
is more exacting than production of many agronomic crops. Unless you
are growing all of your crops on plastic mulch, cultivation is probably
a critical part of your program because of the limited availability
of effective herbicides for vegetable crops. Since you are relying
more on cultivation, it is important that you cultivate very close
to the crop rows to remove as many weeds as possible. It takes a realy
good tractor driver to be able to hold a cultivator within 2 to 3
inchesof the row, but you can do it easily with a simple precision
cultural system based on mechanical components. Electronic guidance
systems are now available that use corrected GPS receivers to steer
tractors precisely through the field, but those systems are expensive
and not really practical for the small fields found on most vegetable
farms. A simple, inexpensive mechanical alternative has been available
for more that 30 years; it works very well anywhere crops are grown
on beds.
The heart of the precision cultural system is the use of cone guide
wheels, which are commercially available. The cone guide wheels mount
on the toolbar of planters, cultivators, fertilizer applicators, sprayers,
harvest equipment or any other implement where it is important to
locate the tool correctly with respect to the crop row. The cone guide
wheels are used in pairs - one on each side of the bed. On multiple-bed
equipment, it is best to put a pair of guide wheels on each bed, but
you can get by with fewer wheels at the sacrifice of some precision.
An absolutely essential first step in using this precision system
with cone guide wheels is to locate the crop row precisely with respect
to the bed at planting time. The guide wheels lock onto the beds;
if the crop row or rows are not centered on the bed(s), the wheels
will not be effective. There are two methods for precisely locating
the crop rows on the beds. You can use guide wheels on the planter
toolbar to hold the planter - or transplanter - in the correct position
on the bed. An even better approach is to mount the planter or transplanter
directly on the back of a bed shaper so that the crop row is absolutely
centered. Shaped beds will work much better with this system than
beds that are merely hipped up and knocked flat.
Once the crop row is planted precisely it is a simple matter to put
guide wheels on any implement and thus locate the implement precisely
on the bed and precisely centered on the crop row(s). You will need
to let your implement float freely from side to side, so you need
to either loosen the sway links/chains on your tractor or remove/turn
up the sway blocks on your tractor, if so equipped. Once you give
the implement freedom to move laterally and follow the row, all the
driver has to do is generally herd the tractor down the rows. The
cone guide wheels will lock onto the bed and pull the implement into
position without any effort on the part of the driver.
This system is inexpensive to implement and offers two advantages
to vegetable growers: improved precision in their cultivation and
other post-pant operations, and a reduced level of tractor driving
skill required
