[Image: Shaping precision beds]Growing commercial vegetables is different from growing agronomic crops and requires a different approach to equipment. A precision cultural system (PCS) developed by the LSU AgCenter can make commercial vegetable production much easier.
Why the Need for a Precision Cultural System
Most vegetable crops are smaller, more delicate plants than corn, cotton, sugarcane or soybeans and have to be treated more gently. Many vegetable crops have small seeds that must be carefully placed at shallow depths. Herbicide choices tend to be limited for most vegetable crops, thus precision cultivation is needed. Quality of individual vegetables is critical, and vegetables are easily damaged. All of these concerns can be addressed by using PCS.
Bed Shaping
The basis for PCS is planting on shaped beds. Virtually all vegetable crops in the Deep South are grown on beds. The beds facilitate drainage and early warming of the soil. Most beds are first formed with a disk bedder or a middlebuster. After the rough beds are made, they can be firmed, leveled and shaped with a bed shaper (Figure 1). The bed shaper can be either a pan type or a spool. It is important to shape and firm the sides of the beds as well as the top, so a simple roller is not adequate. The shaped beds provide a good seedbed for planting and allow precision guidance of the planter.
Planting
It is important to place the planter unit(s) precisely on the shaped row so that subsequent operations such as cultivation can be guided precisely. This can be accomplished in two ways: the planter can be mounted directly on the back of the bedshaper (Figure 2) or cone guide wheels can be mounted on the planter frame to lock the planter(s) onto the pre-shaped row(s).
Cone Gu[Image: Planting behind integral bed shaper]ide Wheels
Cone guide wheels are wheels shaped like a truncated cone that run on the sides of the shaped beds and guide equipment. When you are using cone guide wheels, the sway blocks or sway links on the tractor are loosened so that the implement is free to float from side to side, independent of the tractor. The guide wheels, not the driver, control the location of the implement.
Cultivation
Vegetable cultivation needs be both precise and shallow to avoid damaging the crop plants. Once the vegetable crop is planted in precisely located rows on shaped beds with PCS, it is easy to cultivate very close to the crop row without damage. Cone guide wheels are used to guide the cultivator on the beds. This allows easy cultivation within 2-3 inches of the crop row – with no skill required by the driver. A typical PCS cultivator is shown in Figure 3. This and other cultivators are described in related articles.
Other Operations
Other post-plant [Image: Precision cultivation using cone guide wheels]operations such as side-dressing fertilizer, directed spraying and knifing carrots can also be precisely guided in PCS using cone guide wheels. The smooth bed surface resulting from PCS is an advantage in mechanical harvesting and flame weeding.
In summary, PCS allows a grower to plant a vegetable crop precisely and then easily perform subsequent precision operations such as cultivation. Even if beds are not needed for drainage, the benefits of PCS are so great that precision beds are recommended for most vegetable crops.