With precision farming techniques becoming more and more widespread, the owners of many small and medium-sized farms are considering purchasing GPS devices and guidance systems for their machinery. While the market offers agriculture professionals a large variety of these devices, many farmers wonder where they can find guidance systems for older tractors. In this article, we will talk about 3 excellent guidance systems that will be suitable both for old and new agriculture machinery.
FieldBee
FieldBee is a relatively new player on the farm guidance system market but it offers plenty of advantages over more well-known guidance systems manufactured by John Deere, Topcon, Trimble, etc. One of the things that set FieldBee apart is its low price, which starts from €835 for a manual guidance system and €1850 for an RTK system. Farmers who use an RTK system with an autosteer device can reach centimeter accuracy when carrying out agriculture procedures. But unlike other systems on this list, FieldBee doesn’t come with a separate terminal. Instead, users can install the FieldBee app on their Android tablets or smartphones.
JohnDeere Auto-Trac
The JohnDeere Auto-Trac guidance system is another excellent alternative for an older agricultural fleet. In fact, a farmer from Nebraska has been able to install the device on a two-cylinder tractor manufactured in 1947. Of course, a few adjustments had to be made to the device to adapt it to such an old tractor model and there are occasional issues with the auto-steering, but overall, this case proves that Auto-Trac is more than suitable for older tractors.
Outback Guidance
Outback guidance has released a Rebel line of guidance and autosteer systems that work on all hydraulically driven tractors that have been manufactured up to 45 years ago. The company offers three packages in this product line: sub-inch, row crop, and broad acre. Sub-inch is the highest end package, it includes an RTK antenna that can connect to network RTK or interact with a separate RTK base station to provide location positioning with sub-inch precision when autosteering. The basic broad acre package provides 6-8-inch precision during agricultural procedures. One downside of these solutions is that they are not cheap, as the three packages range in price between $7,995 and $15,995.
Final thoughts on guidance systems for older tractors
As you can see, having an older tractor is no longer an obstacle for farmers who want to utilize modern tractor guidance and autosteer technology. In this article, we have described three excellent tractor autosteer systems at different price points. If you’re interested in the FieldBee autosteer, explore our website for more information.