The Global Positioning System (GPS) was started by the USA Defense in 1978. Early consumer versions were not very precise. The least expensive versions had an accuracy of between one and several meters. In 2022, most commonly used GPS is accurate to one inch or less. Today GPS is widely used for things from a map that is free on most smart phones, to tracking of trucks in a fleet, to monitoring the location of your child or as a leg bracelet on a criminal to track them 24-7.
GPS has been commonly used in agriculture for more than 20 years. Many new tractors, combines, sprayers, planters and fertilizer applicators have some form of GPS installed when delivered to the farmer.
GPS soil sampling is an excellent way to let the farmer know precisely which spots in the field need which nutrient, organic matter or other soil amendment. When combined with a yield monitor on harvesting equipment, a farmer can find out which part of the field produces the best or worst. When combined with variable rate seed or fertilizer application equipment farmers can make applications to match maximum profitability. Today many . . .
expensive construction equipment like bulldozers, excavators, backhoes and even trucks and cars are equipped with position monitoring devices in case of theft.
Most land surveys today are completed with GPS. Some graveyards use GPS for accurate plot positioning. Some mapping software has used street view for easier location of travel destinations. The major countries defense departments have no intention of telling anyone what uses or how accurate that their GPS can be used for.
When our ancestors mapped out and allocated lots of land to new pioneers hundreds or even thousands of years ago, GPS did not exist and the accuracy and size of the lot description varied greatly when a county or township was surveyed by people from an unemployed soldier, to a trained surveyor.
Some lots in the wilderness were later cleared and turned into productive farms or building lots and the value of these lots were very low. Most land was given free to a settler who would clear, plant a crop and build a building which was usually a shelter to live in. I have farmed several farms that were a “chain” (which was an old way of measuring land) 66 feet, wider at one end than the other! Maybe the fellows holding the chain lost their count? Anyone who has flown over Ireland and looked out the plane window on a clear day must have wondered how those crooked little fields were measured or surveyed a thousand or more years ago.
It didn’t take our grandparents long to realize that many farms were not too square. When they plowed or worked a field, they soon realized that some fields were wider at one end than the other. Grampa’s GPS in his head could compensate the width of a plow furrow from one end of the field to the other so that when he was finished, there would be the same number of furrows at each end of the field. When he disked or cultivated the field, he just over-lapped more at one end than the other so that both ends of the set would finish in the same round of his tool. When he cut hay or grain, he just cut a little less of a swath at one end than the other.
When my dad used to take us for a car ride on Sunday afternoon, we always admired a field that was plowed perfectly straight or a corn field that the rows were straight for half a mile. Now, we seldom see any plowing and a corn field that has the rows perfectly straight usually because it was planted with a GPS guided corn planter.
Twenty years ago, I priced a new 24 row corn planter and it was less expensive to put GPS on my planter tractor than to buy hydraulic markers for the 24 row corn planter. Then there was no need to worry about breaking a marker off on a tree in the middle of a field or catching it on a fence. Now with a full GPS system on the planter tractor, once the farmer makes the first trip planting around the outside of the field, the planter tractor can almost continue to plant the rest of the field by itself, lifting the planter at each end, turning and lowering the planter for the next pass and even shutting each row off independently in an odd shaped field so there is no overlap of corn rows. Our farming ancestors took great pride in plowing and planting straight rows. Adequate fertility and weed control still makes a crop profitable.
There will always be new challenges for our farmers to provide nutritious, safe, affordable food for Canadians.
