Scoop: Solar storm is causing farmers' tractor GPS systems to go haywire. Many have shut down planting altogether during a critical period. A Deere dealer said accuracy is "extremely compromised"
This is a reminder of how much modern tractors rely on satellite and internet connections. Many farmers can't or won't plant right now bc tractors have been highly automated to increase yield. Rows are planted so tightly together that humans can't navigate them w/o killing crops
One farmer called it a "shitshow." Another: "All the tractors are sitting at the ends of the field right now shut down because of the solar storm." Another said their systems that are normally centimeter-accurate were off by 3-6 feet and tractor kept "wandering off" and had to be constantly corrected.
This, from a John Deere dealer, is wild. They warn that affected tractors operated during this time will likely have made maps that are wrong, which will be wrong throughout the growing system, and which are wrong in an inconsistent way
@jasonkoebler Interesting to figure out who or what fucked up here. SBAS/WAAS provider? DGPS makers messing up ionospheric correction? Space weather parameters out of spec for the software running on the RTKs? All of the above?
nb: As much as I dislike Deere, this should be handled completely blameless, the way the FAA handles an investigation. So many lessons to learn here.
@gsuberland@thetaphi@jasonkoebler Indeed, which also suggests that the over reliance on GPS for centimeter accuracy in crop planting is a nasty failure mode that should be avoided.
The solar storm is just a dress rehearsal 🎭 for nation state actors knocking out GPS and causing food shortages.
@jasonkoebler Alt text: "Due to the way the RTK network works, the base stations were sending out
corrections that have been affected by the geomagnetic storm and were
causing drastic shifts in the field and even some heading changes that were
drastic," the dealership told farmers Saturday morning.
Highlighted in green:
"When you head back
into these fields to side dress, spray, cultivate, harvest, etc. over the next… (1/2)
several months, we expect that the rows won't be where the AutoPath lines
think they are. (End highlight)
This will only affect the fields that are planted during times of
reduced accuracy. It is most likely going to be difficult-if not impossible-to
make AutoPath work in these fields as the inaccuracy is most likely
inconsistent." (2/2)
@jasonkoebler rtk for civiliens hes been that accurate for several decades. However it has always needed a lot of correction to get there and that means the recivers are thousands of dollars end need a monthly subscription (or a second reciver, the subscription is generally cheaper)
@jasonkoebler Alt text: Schwarz says organic farms like his rely heavily on precision farming features,
because rows of crops are planted very tightly together to prevent weeds from
growing in the spaces between plants. "We used to have markers that would
scratch a line in the ground that you could then use to kind of drive by eye," he
said. "Now, we plant so tight in terms of how much the tractor can go side to… (1/2)
side and how much the equipment can go side to side that if we aren't
absolutely perfect, it just doesn't work. You just physically can't drive that
straight [without guidance]. If you're sitting up there in a tractor seat, you can't
steer fast enough or well enough to not kill the crop because we're so tight on
clearances." (2/2)
@jasonkoebler I mean, farmers already have to accommodate weather, having to also take space weather into account doesn't seem like a huge leap...
"We’ve just had two beautiful days from a weather perspective of being able to plant and you know, we just have to sit here."
But you never hear "We've just had 21 beautiful years from a space weather perspective of being able to plant, but it's been pissing it down all weekend."
@michael_w_busch@jasonkoebler Even better intersection: the farmer who found the piece of SpaceX junk near me mentioned that he lost GPS access when I talked to him a couple days ago!
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