Investing in VSN – Auto-Steer for Row Crops

The VSN visual guidance system is Raven’s Industries solution to auto steer fields of emerged row crops.  VSN uses a non-contact stereo vision camera to navigate crop rows in the field. The VSN system can automatically steer in crops from 4” tall all the way through 90% canopy.  Cameras installed on the inside of each front wheel will steer the machine after reaching full canopy.  This will help the operator with nitrogen and fungicide applications made in tasseled corn.

There are several advantages to installing these systems on application equipment:

• VSN will help reduce wheel traffic through emerged crops.
• It will also reduce the operator stress & fatigue from long days of steering through crop rows. 
• This should have a secondary benefit allowing operators to cover up to another 20% of acres in a day by not needing to slow down from the fatigue of manually steering. 
• It also allows the operator to focus on their machine, and all the other aspects of fertilizer or chemical application.

Going forward new application equipment purchased by Country Visions will have the systems installed and this winter we are upgrading about 12 other existing machines with VSN modules. We are investing in this technology to help improve our on-farm applications, increase our efficiency with the limited number of days fit for application in spring, and deliver more value to your farm.

By Ryan DuBois