ANALYSIS OF INFLUENCING FACTORS ON INFIELD LOGISTICS IN GERMANY

Future efficiency enhancements in agriculture will not only be achieved by higher engine powers or rising working widths but increasingly by process optimizations of agricultural production processes. Navigation not only to the fields but also within the fields will certainly contribute to make use of these efficiency reserves. Knowledge of potential influences on infield-logistics is a basic requirement to be able to navigate agricultural machinery in the fields effectively and process optimized individually or in process chains. A view inside the agricultural landscape of Germany illustrates that farmers do not always implement the infield strategy suggested by a mathematical optimization tool. Thus, there must be influencing factors which are more important for farmers concerning their choice of infield patterns. Both farm managers and staff members act quite farm specifically as well as depending on technology or situation and furthermore often intuitive. To analyze these "soft" influencing factors the examinations are based on expert interviews with the aid of aerial images. The study is intended to cover the entire range of German agriculture from rural mixed farms up to large agricultural cooperatives farming thousands of hectares. First results show that farm managers using guidance systems increasingly attune their infield-logistics on direction giving obstacles. In consequence they can avoid inefficient boom flippings while doing plant protection. Livestock farmers rather focus on the application of organic manure with its specific requirements concerning road conditions, landscape terrain or field access points. Cultivation of sugar beets makes great demands on infield patterns because of its particularities such as the row crop system or high logistics demands. Summing up the choice of specific infield strategies always is a compromise of many influences. Mostly it is not enough to consider one single working step but the entire production process. The obtained influencing factors can be afterwards integrated as decision criteria into an infield navigation tool. Thus process efficiency can be further increased.