TITLE:  

Evaluation of Micro-Trak^Ò Cotton Yield Monitor at AG-CARES, Lamesa, TX, 2001

AUTHORS:   

Alan Brashears, Steve Searcy, Wayne Keeling, Danny Carmichael, and John Everitt; Agricultural Engineer, Professors, and Research Associates

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION:

Irrigated cotton was harvested at AG-CARES from Oct 17 –23 and dryland in late Nov. with a John Deere 7445 cotton stripper equipped with a Micro-Trak^Ò yield monitor. The Micro-Trak^Ò yield monitor system used is comprised of sensors located on the stripper conveyance ducts, and data logger to monitor cotton flow. At intervals of one to three seconds a data point is taken that consists of latitude, longitude, and an output from the sensors. The yield variable is calculated using the ground speed of the machine and the cotton flow calculated from the sensors located on the air shoot to the basket. The data is transferred onto a PCMCIA Compactflash card in the data logger and from this data card can then be transferred to a laptop computer to be processed. The program that processes the data from Micro-Trak^Ò is Grain-Trak^Ò. This program converts all data to a useable format (latitude, longitude, and cotton flow) that can then be processed and mapped by using mapping software such as ArcView. The main conversion done is the cotton flow variable. Grain-Trak^Ò converts the flow of cotton to units of either bur cotton wt./A or lint cotton wt./A (based on the turnout from the gin). Using the processed data from Grain-Trak^Ò, maps can be created showing the relative differences in cotton production across different regions of the field (Figure 1 and Figure 2).

                Cotton was harvested and yield maps were successfully created at additional TAES locations including Western Peanut Grower farm, Halfway and Helms Research farms. An updated version of this system will be evaluated in 2002.

Figure 1. AG-CARES 2001 yield map irrigated circle and dryland corners.

Figure 2. AG-CARES 2001 dryland yield map.