According to UK farmer David Wakefield and combine driver Rodney Martin, harvesting is not only more fun using the MF 7278 CEREA machine and the Fieldstar precision farming system, the economic benefits are also evident.

David Wakefield’s target is clear: make money. To fulfill his target he may vary his crops and the ways to grow them from one year to the next. This requires sturdy, versatile equipment that can be adjusted to suit the unique needs of each particular crop. David also needed an extremely high capacity machine that did not suffer from blockages. A couple of years ago, he found what he needed – a Massey Ferguson 7278 CEREA combine harvester complete with the MF® Fieldstar Datavision screen for complete overview. With this machine, he can now harvest crops at the rate of more than 400 tonnes of wheat per day, for instance. Since they prefer to rely on the sun to dry the grain, the overall harvesting capacity is essential for them.

To Rodney’s relief, the touch sensitive screen of the Datavision control system makes it easy to control everything, even though he knew nothing about computers when they first set out. They use the Fieldstar system to record yields, and vary their fertilizer and spray applications as appropriate. And the benefits are obvious; the field mapping they did last year demonstrated that they were able to produce 2 t/ha more wheat on land ploughed for that purpose than on fields where they used minimum cultivations.