End-of-season stalk nitrate sensor
AssigneeDeere & Company
InventorsBradley W. Van De Woestyne, Timothy A. Wilcox
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An agricultural machine configured to harvest a crop having stalks includes a main frame and a plurality of wheels supporting the main frame from the ground. A crop header is mounted on the main frame and includes a header frame extending transversely to a forward direction and having a transverse width. The crop header is configured to cut stalks of the crop as the agricultural machine moves in the forward direction. At least one on-the-go nitrate sensor is mounted on the agricultural machine and oriented to collect electromagnetic energy reflected from or emitted by the stalks, the sensor being configured to generate a nitrate level signal representative of a nitrate level in the stalks.
Claims18
An agricultural machine configured to harvest a crop having stalks, comprising:
- a main frame;
- a plurality of wheels or tracks supporting the main frame from a ground surface and configured to drive the agricultural machine in a forward direction to harvest the crop;
- a crop header mounted on the main frame and including a header frame extending transversely to the forward direction and having a transverse width, the crop header being configured to receive stalks of the crop to be cut by the crop header as the agricultural machine moves in the forward direction;
- at least one on-the-go nitrate sensor mounted on the agricultural machine and oriented to collect electromagnetic energy reflected from or emitted by the stalks, the sensor being configured to generate a nitrate level signal representative of a nitrate level in the stalks;
- at least one position sensor supported from agricultural machine and configured to generate a position signal representative of a position of the agricultural machine within an external reference system defined by a satellite based positioning system;
- and
- a controller configured to receive the position signal and the nitrate level signal and to store data representative of the nitrate level signal in association with data representative of the position signal.
A method of automatically performing an end-of-season stalk nitrate test when harvesting a crop having stalks, comprising:
- harvesting the crop with a crop header including a header frame extending transversely to a forward harvesting direction, the crop header being configured to cut stalks of the crop as the agricultural machine moves in the forward harvesting direction;
- collecting electromagnetic energy reflected from or emitted by the stalks with at least one on-the-go nitrate sensor;
- generating a nitrate level signal with the at least one on-the-go nitrate sensor representative of a nitrate level in the stalks;
- generating a position signal representative of a position of the agricultural machine within an external reference system defined by a satellite based positioning system;
- receiving the position signal and the nitrate level signal in a controller;
- and
- storing data representative of the nitrate level signal in association with data representative of the position signal in a computer readable medium associated with the controller.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.