Auto-guidance systems have been used with relative frequency in the Brazilian agriculture. On citrus the use of this technology is being applied on the furrows opening for transplanting. The present study aimed to evaluate the accuracy of a RTK auto-guidance system and to compare the field capacity generated by the use of that technology in relation to the conventional system on citrus furrows opening operation. The first stage consisted on georreferencing the plants in the field three months after the transplanting using both technologies for furrows opening. In the second stage field capacities were evaluated by collecting data with a GPS receiver, with the tractor under the two conditions, with and without auto-guidance use. The average aligning error for plants was 0,08 m in the conventional system and 0,04 m for the auto-guidance system. Field efficiency for the opening furrows operation was 73,4% for the auto-guidance system and 77,6% for the conventional system. However, with the auto-guidance system it was possible to work with higher speeds, what resulted in a larger field capacity (4,65 ha h-1 and 4,07 ha h-1). The user reported operation cost of the opening furrow smaller for the auto-guidance system than for the conventional system, especially due to the labor involved on the conventional system.
Precision Agriculture; Guidance System; GNSS
