Sugarcane is the world’s largest crop. Brazil rules the globe in sugarcane production, doubling the production of India, its closest competitor. Annual production of Brazilian sugarcane is greater than 672 million tons, which is pretty darn sweet for the Brazilian economy.
Usina Santa Fe, located in Nova Europa, São Paulo, Brazil, is a sugarcane producer founded in 1925. The company produces sugar, ethanol, and molasses, crushing 19,000 tons of sugarcane daily. There are 500 employees working in the mill and 1,500 field employees working an area of operation that encompasses an approximately 19-mile (30 kilometer) radius from the production campus, more than 123,000 acres (50,000 hectares) of land.
“We understand our future efficiency improvements will occur in the field,” states Francisco Sylvio Malzoni Gavotti, director of agriculture operations. “That’s why we continue to invest in the latest and best technology found in machine design and machine control.”
Usina Santa Fe recently invested in more than 40 Topcon Precision Agriculture (TPA) control systems and 50 machines that are “steer-ready” which can be equipped with Topcon’s System 150 or System 350. The System 150s are typically installed on planter tractors while the System 350s are installed on cane harvesters. The TPA systems provide precision autosteering and machine control that provide on-screen visual aids and easy-to-read coverage maps providing productivity enhancements specific to the sugarcane industry. The Topcon technology is designed to keep the heavy agriculture machines from driving over the rows of sugarcane, preventing damage to a crop that is grown on a five-year rotation.
“The Topcon systems are helping us achieve our goal of increasing the operational capacity of planting by optimizing the rows of cane and reducing fuel consumption,” Gavotti said. “Once fully implemented, the system is expected to increase planting efficiency by 20 percent while reducing overall fuel consumption.”
The systems are designed to increase longevity of a cane plantation by allowing for the pre-planning of the planting rows, controlling compaction, and eliminating sugarcane trampling. Among its features, the base system uses fully integrated steering and inertial guidance gyros and has boundary and U-turn recognition to facilitate turn completion and lock onto the next swath.
The machine operator’s Topcon control consoles provide useful on-screen indicators for area applied, speed, row number, and satellite information while automatically building color coverage maps. Coverage mapping helped Usina Santa Fe identify missed areas or overlaps. Knowing the field’s size and shape helped plan the applications and coverage routes.
Pictured on the Topcon X30 touch screen are pre-planned lines for planting sugarcane. AutoCAD Map 3D software was used to develop the lines and then a shape file was imported into the system. The system records these lines during planting for use during harvesting.
The Topcon technology, which features multiple-constellation GNSS satellite reception, has helped Usina Santa Fe with:
• Planting dates, cane varieties, and haul distances as planning considerations for scheduling the planting and end-of-growing-season harvest
• Field and planting line design for key factors such as daylight use, line length, and optimized harvest
• Optimal lines for “controlled traffic farming” to reduce compaction damage from heavy or repeated passes and provides the ability to select any line in a field and autosteer parallel lines
• Confining machinery to the least possible area of permanent traffic lanes and reducing fuel use, increasing yields, and improving soil function and seedbed quality
“We’re pleased with the results we’re getting from the Topcon systems,” Gavotti states. “Our productivity has increased; we have accurate, automatic coverage logs and other job reports; and the autosteering capability eases operator fatigue, reduces machine wear, and reduces overlap and input costs.”
For Usina Santa Fe, the sweet taste of success keeps getting sweeter.
Source: Machine Control Online. Written by Jeff Winke
