Method and system for harvesting and ensilage of feed material

1. A method for creating feed material using at least one harvesting vehicle configured with a fieldwork computer connected to a sensor, a compression vehicle configured with a camera and a central control unit, comprising steps of:

transporting plant material harvested from a field to a silo using the at least one harvesting vehicle;

using the sensor and fieldwork computer to detect a mass flow of plant material in the harvesting vehicle;

using the camera to record images of a pile with harvested plant material to be compressed and compressing the plant material in the silo using the compression vehicle;

using the central control unit, estimating a quantity of plant material to be compressed at the silo by calculating a three dimensional shape or volume of the pile based on the images of the pile recorded by the camera, prior to delivery of a new load of plant material;

using the fieldwork computer, calculating a weight of the harvested plant material as a harvesting output and sending the calculated weight to the central control unit;

comparing the quantity of plant material to be compressed at the silo to the weight of the harvested plant material; and

adapting the harvesting output of the at least one harvesting vehicle to the quantity of the plant material to be compressed at the silo by sending a command from the central control unit to the harvesting vehicle or the compression vehicle and vice versa.

2. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the step of adapting includes adapting an output of a drive engine of the harvesting vehicle.

3. The method according to claim 2 , wherein the step of adapting includes switching between various operating states of the drive engine, which operating states differ according to an output-engine speed characteristic curve thereof.

4. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising estimating the harvesting output based on a quantity of the plant material to be compressed at the silo and adapting the harvesting output when a long-term trend in a development of the quantity is identified.

5. The method according to claim 4 , wherein the estimating includes detecting a volume of the quantity photographically using the camera of the compression vehicle.

6. The method according to claim 4 , wherein the estimating includes estimating a surface covered with the plant material to be compressed.

7. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising assessing the plant material as compressed when the compression vehicle has driven over a surface unit covered with the plant material to be compressed a predefined number of times.

8. The method according to claim 7 , wherein a traversable surface of the silo is subdivided into a plurality of surface units and wherein a number of drive over traverses is recorded for each surface unit.

9. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising discharging plant material to be compressed at the silo in loads and reporting a weight of each load.

10. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the harvesting output is estimated on the basis of a mass flow of the plant material at the harvesting vehicle.

11. The method according to claim 1 , wherein in order to be hauled to the silo, the plant material is transferred from the at east ore harvesting vehicle to at least one hauling vehicle, including steps of:

estimating a hauling output;

comparing the compression output of the compression device to the hauling output; and

adapting the hauling output if the hauling output is determined to deviate from the compression output.

12. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the compression device is a compression vehicle.

13. A control unit for carrying out the method according to claim 1 , comprising:

means for comparing the compression output, and

a communication interface for transmitting at least one command to the harvesting vehicle to increase or decrease the harvesting output.