Would you buy... [autonomous rock picker]

[grassfarmer]

And in your mind grass why in eastern Manitoba would getting rid of willows and clean up land increase the slough size. See no snow to catch less water less slough no cattails water issue done. Normal years works great but a Scotsman maybe doesn’t know canada. Oh wait your a expert

Sloughs by definition are low spots where water runs to. You take out the large trees/bushes around them that suck up a tremendous amount of water, replace it with a crop that'll do poorly/grow foxtail barley and it'll be wetter for sure. Certainly is on the other places they've done it - OK though as crop insurance will come through and pay them for seeding through low spots that should never be seeded anyway. Poor job that the taxpayer gets to fund this environmental destruction though.

[WiltonRanch]

Seems we don’t spend much time like in the past picking stones but more time digging rocks and deadheads. No peas no need to pick pebbles. If we catch an opportunity we run the cat around digging the big guys. All our land attached so this is possible. I like the autonomous rock picker idea. Great use of tech to take care of a mundane job. Most no till land doesn’t grow rocks like summerfallow so your concept would keep up to most moderately stony ground. If it looks like god spent the seventh day throwing rocks at your land maybe not.

[blackpowder]

This type of technology will be prevalent in generations to come.
Why not a rockpicker??
I'd rent it if I was still farming.

[Horse]

If I had something like that it would be busier than a cat covering shit on a tin roof.
I need a gravel crusher not a rock picker.

[Stampsguy]

It is a great idea, don’t let the nancies tell you any different. Technology is going to change everything done in Ag in the next 10 years....magnitudes more than it already has.

Patent first...figure out later.

Good luck.

You might be too late now. Threw out idea in public domain.

[Daylate]

I feel it would work on 80% of seeded ground across sask. if it travelled as fast as a regular picker tractor. Could easily get done in the time it takes to seed. would have to be made easy to use. If it takes an hour out of a seeding day to prepare and hook up then I'm already leaning towards waiting till the push is off and picking.

[blackpowder]

I wouldnt mess with it at seeding.
But with a map made by the drill??
Why not pick at a better time?
Just the sensor made map useful.
Rocks pushed in by drill could be flipped up in fall by harrow and picked.
A proper/complete picking on problem fields here would last several years.
Dont give up Klause.

[AlbertaFarmer5]

I never actually answered your original question, no I wouldn't buy one, not nearly enough rocks here to justify it, with one notable exception, I would be hard pressed to pick a half dozen rocks on a quarter per year. That said, if the detection system is simple to install, inexpensive and reliable, that might interest me. Or if you've come up with something where a drone could locate all rocks.

[Tucker]

I used to spend all spring picking rocks by hand and degelman when I was a kid here. Now I'm 100% seedhawk and I flag any rocks I see on the gps and come pick them up with a loader tractor after seeding. Usually only about 3 per quarter section. Unless your picker can move serious rock to the pile it's not worth what it would cost. The auto flagging rock thing might be worth something. I remember when Cotton was talking about taking a piss off the 4wd while autosteering seeding. I think I have time to hit the flag button a few times for the odd rock I see.

Sell a turnkey drone with a NDVI and a piksi rtk gps on it and I'd be all over something like that.

[tweety]

I'm more interested in the rock flagging technology. How would that work? Measure trip distance?

[Rareearth]

I wish Trimble would incorporate that as a one button type app button. It should share that map with other monitors on the farm package ( monitors) then have a simple one button to remove rocks ( might get most of them with a half ton.

Even better if it would share that map or info with a cell phone or iPad

[blackpowder]

Some employees cant flag a dump let alone every rock. Some folk have a few more than 3 per field.