Precision farming in a box

Aug 21, 2001 12:00 PM, Wayne Wenzel

If you’ve delayed buying precision farming equipment because of its cost or complexity, a solution is in sight. Australian company K. Eldredge Electronics (KEE) plans to market its multifunctional Lynx Universal Controller in the U.S. sometime later this year.

At an expected price of around $10,000, the Lynx unit offers a super-tough computer in a small package with software and a 6-gigabyte hard drive. About half the size of a standard laptop computer, the unit includes an easy-to-read touch screen. Combined with the appropriate number of interfaces, it can run up to 10 different precision agriculture functions: GPS guidance, autosteer, variable rate seeding, spray computer, boom leveler, depth control, autohitch (turns a rigid hitch into a floating hitch), spreader controller, header height control and remote access. The remote access feature lets repair technicians “ring up” the tractor or piece of farm machinery to diagnose technical problems from hundreds of miles away. KEE managing director Kym Eldredge says the Lynx system eliminates the duplicity of multiple control boxes, knobs, switches and cable harnesses that plague many present precision farming systems. “Once farmers recognize and harness the potential of this system, traditional farming control methods will be a thing of the past,” Eldredge says.

Contact KEE Pty. Ltd., Dept. FIN, Box 294, Clare 5454 South Australia, Australia, 618/8842-3188, www.kee.com.au.