AginED
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FOR E FUTURIA G R R S! U PR EN E
Volume 94 I February 28, 2022 I email: agined@globalHQ.co.nz I www.farmersweekly.co.nz/agined Are you a parent or teacher and want to receive AginED every week directly to your email inbox? Send us an email to sign up at agined@globalhq.co.nz
Have a go: 1
Both Emily and Sam Welch are top class shearers. Why do we shear sheep?
2 How often are sheep shorn? 3 Where in New Zealand are the Welch's based?
STRETCH YOURSELF: 1 Head to https://farmersweekly.co.nz/s/ fw-article/chasing-a-perfect-shearing-dayMCMSLRBMNK5RFVBFOZ22O64QWNMM to watch the Onfarm Story of Emily and Sam Welch “Chasing perfection in “ and read the related article “Chasing a perfect shearing day”.
PODCAST CORNER:
AGTECH SO WHAT - IS THE FUTURE OF FARMING HANDS FREE?
Kit Franklin from the ‘Hands free Hectare’ which started as an experiment that is believed to be the first crop to be planted, cultivated, and harvested - completely autonomously.
LISTEN
Approximately how many sheep does ‘Welch shearing’ shear in a year?
2 How many people are generally in a shearing gang? What are the different roles within the gang? Outline what each person does. 3 What are some of the accolades that Emily and Sam have won? 4 When they take over the balance of Emily’s parents farm, what stock will they farm and produce?
https://www.agtechsowhat.com/ agtechsowhatepisodes/2021/7/27/isthe-future-of-farming-hands-free
5 How do you learn to be a shearer? Can anyone do it? 6 Do you need to go to complete courses to become a shearer? Are there courses available? If so, what are they?
We have a number of top-class shearers in New Zealand and they often get involved in competitions to raise money for various charities.
Recently some South Island shearers took up the challenge of a 24-hour shearathon, Shear 4 Blair charity shearathon, in West Otago over Waitangi weekend. The core of these were Cole Well, Braydon Clifford, David Gower and Eru Weeds and together with casual shearers and a strong contingent of supporters and support workers, they helped raise around $130,000 for the Southland Charity Hospital by shearing 10,084 lambs. The four shearers worked the full 24-hour period and finished with a combined total of 6476 lambs between them and the final 12 lambs that were left unshorn at the end of the 24-hours were finished by volunteers from the audience. 1
Do you know of any other charity shearing events? Can you name two?
Autonomous machinery?
John Deere Australia-NZ production systems manager Ben Kelly said “With this new tractor, it is as simple as transporting the machine to a field and configuring it for autonomous operation. Then, using John Deere Operations Centre, farmers can swipe from left to right to start the machine and can leave the field to focus on other tasks, while monitoring its status from their mobile device. That centre provides access to live video, images and data, and allows farmers to adjust speed, depth and more from the mobile app.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1Z5wRxQ8PQ 1
How did Kit get into ag-tech?
2 Hands Free Hectare was an idea to show how hands free farming could be put into real life use. Can you see any negatives to using automated machinery? 3 Kit believes using robotic farming could reduce the need for chemicals and heavy machinery. Why is this beneficial? 4 Do you have any ideas on a farm process that could be automated?
John Deere has developed an autonomous tractor. It is a 410HP John Deere 8 Series model, which is widely used for cropping applications, including tillage, cropping and spraying.
The tractor uses six cameras to enable it to detect objects and calculate distance, with the images captured by the cameras passing through a neural network that classifies each pixel in 100 milliseconds. This determines if the machine continues to move or stops, depending on if an obstacle is detected and allows it to operate within less than 2.5cm of accuracy. The tractor is also continuously checking its position relative to a geofence, ensuring it is operating where it is supposed to.
WATC H
In the event of job quality anomalies or machine health issues, farmers are notified remotely and can make adjustments to optimise the performance of the machine. The tractor will be available to a limited number of US customers for purchase this year, before it is rolled out gradually to other countries, including New Zealand, over the next few years. 1
Do you believe that there would be benefits for NZ farmers and agriculturists if they used autonomous tractors? Why or why not?
2 Who would be most likely to use these? 3 Do you think that these tractors could improve production and/or profitability on farms?