Precision FarmingAutoma­tion Opti­mises Every Working Hour

Between Toulouse and Castres, the eye is drawn to the undu­lating land­scape studded with large fields, copses, reser­voirs and valley floors. The Tarn Laura­gais is an agri­cul­tural region, once known as the Land of Plenty. The region’s soils are heavy clay-lime­stone and coupled with an oceanic climate, lend them­selves to a range of crops. However, the sloping fields means strong machinery perfor­mance is required, as seen from Guillaume’s fleet of machinery.

Typical of the Laura­gais Tarn region, the 38-ha ‘Entabat’ block of land in the fore­ground is made up of non-geometric shapes, curved borders and slopes.

Damien Albert, left, is the equip­ment manager at SARL Guil­laume Ripoll. The Oper­a­tions Centre allows him to record settings for each machine and make them avail­able to the team.

For two years, Guil­laume has been storing 5,000t of grain in flat silos for his customers and his farm. Both a weigh­bridge and an admin­is­tra­tive building are now in service.

Impres­sive devel­op­ment in the contracting busi­ness

“I started to work along­side my father in 2011,” says 39-year-old Guil­laume. “Two years later, I took over his agri­cul­tural contracting busi­ness. And in 2016, I was able to expand and develop an A-to-Z service, which is contin­uing to gain ground.” Less than 10 years later, between the family farm and the contracting busi­ness, Guil­laume and his team drill nearly 1,200ha of crops, with 90% grown within a 10 km radius of the Régantus silo, the head­quar­ters of SARL Ripoll.

Customers benefit from a 5,000-t crop storage facility thanks to a silo for grain, maize, sunflower seeds, rape­seed and chick­peas. “I had up to 300ha of organic crops. This explains why I like long rota­tions, which help keep the weed burden down,” explains Guil­laume. “Of course I like the idea of simpli­fied tillage, even direct drilling, but I want to main­tain good yields, which is why we have, once again, ploughed around 100ha this year.”

Versa­tile cultivation plan­ning under control

With 1,200ha, 289 parcels and a diverse crop rota­tion, it all sounds like a daunting task. But Guil­laume disagrees: “I make it very clear to my customers that to keep my work manage­able, I have to unify crop rota­tions and the plant protec­tion and nutrient programmes.” SARL Ripoll could expand further this year if it takes on new contracts. But the chal­lenge Guil­laume faces with growth is not the equip­ment, which will manage the increased work­load, but the work­force.

The expan­sion of SARL Ripoll requires a reli­able team. “We employ three people, two of them being full time, and we keep commu­ni­ca­tion clear by creating a good atmos­phere throughout the busi­ness,” Guil­laume explains. It’s a young work­force, with an average age of 30, with Guillaume’s wife Marie in charge of storage. Automa­tion is also key to making the busi­ness run effi­ciently.

Automa­tion ensures Higher Produc­tivity, Quality and Conve­nience

“I realised that for Damien Albert, my machinery fleet manager, access to the John Deere tech­nology in the Oper­a­tions Center was impor­tant to opti­mise settings,” he says. “I once drilled 105ha of wheat in just 15 hours using the 8RT 410 and the nine-metre trailed seed drill. Automa­tion plays an impor­tant role in achieving these hourly rates. To main­tain the even­ness of our land we have programmed the 8RX 410 to raise the blades on our eight-metre rotary harrow, before lifting the packer roller,” says Guil­laume. “This prevents soil ridges forming at the head­lands, as that causes prema­ture wear and tear of machinery.”

Stanislas de Gorostarzu, right, is respon­sible for the Preci­sion Agri­cul­ture depart­ment at Dupuy-Agri, a deal­er­ship employing more than 160 people across eight bases in the South-West.

On his John Deere 8RX 410 tractor, Guil­laume has the Command Center G5Plus console with extended monitor.

Screen­shot of land parcels that Guil­laume culti­vates, using Autopath to create the best work route. 

By using automa­tion, new or tempo­rary drivers can find the best settings for the machinery, with Command Centre displays in each of the three lead trac­tors. The stubble culti­vator has been programmed to lower its spikes into the soil progres­sively, which the team hope will boost the service life of the chassis. The undu­lating topog­raphy and often unusual shape of the fields in Tarn Laura­gais is what encour­aged Guil­laume to intro­duce vari­able rate appli­ca­tion tech­nology for all crops and inputs. 

POSITIVE TEST WITH AUTOPATH

“For sunflowers, the prescrip­tion maps deliver opti­mised seeding rates: 45,000 seeds/ha on humps, and 80,000 seeds/ha in the fertile dips. We average at 52,000 seeds/ha instead of the stan­dard setting of 65,000 seeds/ha, meaning I save on seed and inputs.” AutoPath has also helped him reach awkward parcels of land, opti­mising the number of boom passes required on the sprayer. 

Stanislas de Gorostarzu, head of the Preci­sion Farming depart­ment at the Dupuy-Agri deal­er­ship, high­lights the role of the John Deere’s connected equip­ment. “It allows effi­cient manage­ment of sites in terms of plan­ning and the exchange of data, whether this is by modu­la­tion maps that can be managed remotely, the trace­ability of work, or even the auto­matic manage­ment of data between the machine consoles.”