by Lucas Benning, Vandalia, IL 

I got the chance to ride with a customer who is running John Deere Surface Water Pro and iGrade with a Wolverine ditcher pulled by a JD 8430 tractor with SF3000 receivers and Sloan Implement RTK network.  With the recent dry weather we are making ditches to drain the wet holes that have been hard to get rid of the past couple of springs. It amazed me how far the dirt was being thrown from the ditcher (in excess of 40 yards).   After the initial setup, we were able to use Surface Water Pro by surveying our ditch track and recording the elevation every 5 feet.  We then entered our min/max slope and our min/max cut by using the best fit option and then generated a ditch track.   Surface Water Pro shows us how much dirt we are expecting to move and a side profile view so we know how close we are to our desired cut.  Then iGrade takes over and automatically lowers the ditcher and raises it to make the desired slope and depth of the cut. After we are done with the pass we feathered out the sides manually and make one last pass through the middle to clean it up. Then it’s on to the next one.   If you have any questions on Surface Water Pro or iGrade please give me a call at the Vandalia, IL location of Sloan Implement phone 618 283 4305

Check out this video.

Dirt Flying from the Ditcher

Sloan Support is written by the product support team at Sloan Implement, a 20 location John Deere dealer in Illinois and Wisconsin.   Learn more at www.sloans.com