PTx Trimble, now a part of Agco, introduced a new digital system in mid-November for creating topographical field maps and drainage plans, with the software and hardware needed to control implements to carry out those plans.
WM-FieldForm is capable of controlling a single scraper to shape field surfaces. It is the first water management system from the brand to be based on the Precision-IQ field application software used in its GFX-1260 and 1060 displays. It allows for improved visualization and faster auto-design features, the company says.
“We started our ‘farmer first’ with a single scraper,” says Scott Azbell, worldwide water sales manager at PTx Trimble. “Our next phase will be sub-surface drainage. Then we’ll come back in and go after the contractors with dual and tandem scrapers. Two scrapers hooked front to back or side to side.”
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Farmers can use WM-FieldForm to create topographic surveys of fields, using RTK measurements with boundaries, interior points and calculations to report true acreage, using tools such as PTx Trimble’s WM-Survey II app.
Survey data can then be imported into WM-Form design software to create field surface drainage plans using Multiplane technology to define primary and cross slopes, orientation and preferred grades for more complex field requirements.
An RTK guidance system is necessary for WM-FieldForm to work.
“There are a bunch of different signals out there, but RTK is the only one that has vertical accuracy,” says Azbell. “We need the vertical accuracy to be within two centimetres.”
The system allows farmers to do all of the work necessary to carry out a drainage operation from start to finish. That includes creating a drainage plan — and getting the tractor and scraper to actually carry out that plan.
“We’ve been testing this for about five months now, making sure we got all the bugs out before we actually released it,” Azbell adds. “It’s very intuitive. The guys that were doing beta and alpha testing walked right through it.
“It does complicated work, but it’s simple to use.”
WM-FieldForm requires PTx Trimble’s newest GFX1260 or 1060 monitor to work. The system won’t work on older monitors due to the brand’s change in software format a few years ago.
“The displays today are Android-based, the others were not,” Azbell says. “You can use Android apps with the Survey II as a way to get your own (topographical) mapping. So we can use that on this display.”
Aside from the monitor and receiver on the tractor, the system relies on a receiver on the scraper as well.
