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| I am not sure on cost of equipment. Rawson 2-drive system is probably $7000 or more, not sure of what is needed for insight to drive that. That includes a control box from Rawson that simply takes a serial cable connection with a controller that will send rates. We have used Sitemate and PF Advantage. Adding the hydraulic drives to an existing planter is expensive and I have encouraged several people to wait until they trade planters and get one with the drives factory installed. In the case of John Deere, I think the addition of hydraulic drives was only adding 2000 to 2500 to the cost of a brand new from the factory planter, and probalby very little to a used unit sitting on the lot somewhere.
Some will complain that two years yield data isn't enough, but they probably wouldn't like twenty. That isn't a lot of data, but if you are comfortable that you know your fields, that is enough to get started. Most of our yield maps are not shocking surprises. The whole effort pays better the more variability you have. I have fields that I think any additional profits to VRT seeding are very, very small (and would be negative counting time and equipment cost), and we only very rates say 26000 to 29000 (140 avg yield potential). Other fields not far away range 18000 to 32000 and I feel VRT seeding is very successful.
Just don't overdo it the first time. Remember, cutting populations where you really shouldn't will cost you big time with a yield hit. In general, as you get started make the changes small, and if you have areas that simply will not yield, or areas that standout above the average, you can increase the amount of rate change over time. We have found that our zones havn't changed much with several more years of yield data, there is some fine tuning and probably fewer zones in some cases as where we thought we had consistent higher or lower yields that tended to even out over time. In our case those years where we have drought stress late summer and below average yields shows us very clear zones that show up year after year, just not as strong or clearly defined on the better years. So we have pushed populations in areas that yield very good almost regardless of weather, and held steady in areas where stress shows quicker.
Take it slow, don't expect too much right away, and MAKE SURE you have all the equipment/cabling and maps in place long before you are ready to go to the field and it will go much better :)
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Variable rate corn seeding
