Fall tillage season is here, and a lot of small farms are out dragging a harrow or running a disc. That part is easy to keep track of. You can look back and see exactly where you've been.

Spraying is a different story. If you want to put down glyphosate or a similar burndown before you till, there's no mark on the ground to follow. Hold a straight line across a big open field and you'll quickly find it's harder than it looks. Drift a little one way and you overspray, wasting chemical and money. Drift the other way and you leave strips of weeds standing.

GPS Guidance Used to Mean Big Money

Until recently, the answer was a newer tractor with GPS guidance built in, or an add-on system like FieldBee. FieldBee works really well. But for a small farm that only needs guidance a few times a year, it's still a lot of investment.

Your Phone Can Do the Job

We recently tested several GPS guidance apps that run on a smartphone. All of them cost under $100 a year, and most worked pretty well. One stood out: Tractor GPS, available in the App Store, worked exceptionally well in our testing.

Get Tractor GPS in the App Store

Setup Takes About Three Steps

  1. Define your field. Outline the area you want to cover on the satellite map.
  2. Set your width. Enter the width of your spray boom or implement.
  3. Push drive. Follow the on-screen guidance line pass after pass.

Tips for the best accuracy:

  • Mount the phone at the center point of the tractor, so the app tracks where your equipment actually is.
  • Give it a clear view of the sky. Our test tractor had a cab, and the app worked great with the phone mounted on the dash next to the windshield.

Want a bigger screen? You can run the app on an iPad, too. We didn't test it that way, but it's an option if a phone feels too small.

Stay on Course, and Pick Up Where You Left Off

As you drive, the app paints every pass you've covered on the map, so gaps and overlaps are easy to spot. It shows your speed, acres covered and equipment width, along with how many acres are left and an estimate of the time to finish.

Run out of daylight? Stop for the day and hit Continue the next morning. The work log saves your field, your passes and your totals, so you start right where you quit.

Less Waste, Fewer Skips

For the cost of a few gallons of chemical, a phone app can keep you on line, cut down on overspray and keep you from missing strips. For a small farm that sprays only now and then, it's an easy upgrade.

Have questions about setting up guidance on your tractor?

Contact Phil at Small Farm Innovations.

Call (979) 200-0766

phil@smallfarminnovations.com