George Williams, a fourth-generation farmer at Racecourse Projects in Mackay, explains how GPS and precision agriculture technology cut costs and boosted yields over eight years. John Deere's systems let him optimize harvesting, fertilizing, and chemical application with data instead of guesswork.
George Williams Operating partner of Racecourse Projects We've been operating for about eight and a half years. Fourth generation farmer just north of Serena, started with Racecourse Projects from inception and we've grown from just over 250 hectares to just under 5,000 hectares in about eight and a half years. So we're a month into harvest and we've got four harvesters running around working seven days a week. Eight years ago when we started with Racecourse Projects we were really only getting GPS technology to drive us in straight lines. And I would say we've come a long way since we started down this technological road. The setup is absolutely critical and that's really where this journey has started for us in terms of where we put our boundaries and being able to manage the business down beyond paddock.
All our tractors run on gps, like all our operators rely on it and we need them to rely on it for controlled traffic. You know, like we're trying to minimise the impact that we're doing on our land to get the best out of it. We've been harvesting for nearly a month. We rely on all that data coming back out of the harvester for our fertiliser operations. We do a lot of variable rate fertiliser, so treaty, yield monitor and OP center. All the data coming back out of that lets us juggle each field by field, apply what we need to apply to each field and we're trying to keep our cost to a minimum but our production to a maximum.
The amount of machines we've got running around and the number of paddocks that we're in all hours of the day, that remote display access is critical to supporting guys on the ground, but also just that transfer of on time information that allows us to manage what whether it be harvesting or fertilising or spraying the next day. So that for me is where JVLink comes into its home. With reef regs in play in Queensland, particularly in the sugar industry, it is critical that we manage our inputs wisely and economically. And so what the yield maps do is ensure that we're putting our inputs where we're going to get most bang for buck. We move directly from those yield maps and develop prescription maps from that. And last year alone we saved over $65 a hectare in produced nutrient alone. When it comes to chemical applications, buffer zones are absolutely critical. And also those spraying records, we're able to record those chemical applications in real time that meet all the requirements of Queensland refregs. From an optimisation and business perspective, I don't know how we could manage this without it to be hon. So the great thing about our change management when it comes to operator education, from a yield loss point of view, there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that we have in the past been experiencing up to 10% yield losses just due to harvesters going too fast. For us, that's directly going to hit the bottom line when we talk about return on investment. Those yield monitors pay back in one year and what technology allows us to do is manage every square metre of farm. And that's really where we need to go if we're going to be economically viable in the future. The relationship that we have with John Deere, Vanderfeld and V Net is absolutely critical to the success of our journey. When it comes to technology in agriculture, we like to think that we're innovators with the industry and we like to partner with people that are genuinely innovating within industry. The reason why we choose John Deere is because we see where John Deere is going when it comes to quality, precision, technology and agriculture, and so we want to partner with that. For us, it's been quite a ride and quite a journey, but it's one that we want to continue on for a long time.
