A commercial initiative aimed at giving broadacre producers the most accurate GPS data needed for precision farming technology is being unrolled throughout prime farming country on the Queensland/NSW border.

Chesterfield Australia's noted John Deere dealership in Goondiwindi believes its exciting new venture will attract farmers looking to pare back soaring input costs by applying fertilisers and sprays more accurately.

Its new Chesnet system offers 2cm repeatable accuracy, courtesy of a Real Time Kinetic (RTK) base station network that remains operational 24/7 to guarantee its performance year-in, year-out.

Chesterfield Goondiwindi manager Michael Buck gave the background to a venture which is able to reduce the upfront capital expense for farmers wanting to acquire state-of-the-art guidance accuracy.

He says most machinery companies assumed that broadacre farmers would be satisfied with early-generation 10cm accuracy levels, accessed from satellites circling the Earth.

"While 10cm sounded good, that technology didn't have 'repeatability' which meant it wasn't possible to go back to using the same wheel marks the following year," Mr Buck said.

Meanwhile, farmers have continued to express interest in the new levels of accuracy associated with RTK technology – technology that requires a network of base stations able to take into account local atmospheric conditions when delivering signals to any number of receivers.

"Previously, the 2cm option was seen as being suitable for the irrigated, row croppers wanting to cultivate to very tight tolerances," Mr Buck said.

"Today, more and more of our broadacre producers want not only that repeatability component but the extra accuracy in, perhaps, offsetting next year's plant line by 5cm to accommodate their farming system."

The underlying strategy, and the geography of the base station locations, took into account the managerial difficulties surrounding farmers grouping together to set up a base station but not wanting operational responsibility in the event of signal loss.

As a result, Chesterfield Goondiwindi grasped the nettle and built its first base station in North Star, NSW, in January of this year with seven out of an initial eight sites now completed.

Each base station covers some 20km radius, encompassing some 120,000ha (300,000 acres) of productive farmland. All up, this translates to 2 million acres of coverage.

* Extract from a full report to appear in selected rural weekly newspapers, September 25 edition.