Vehicle ballasting assistance

1. A method for enabling user selection of one from a plurality of ballasting options for an agricultural vehicle when coupled to an agricultural implement, comprising:

presenting to a user a menu of selectable implement identifiers;

within a first range of discrete values of a first operational parameter of the vehicle and a first range of discrete values of a second operational parameter of the vehicle, using a user-selected identifier from said menu to look up a second range, less than or equal to the first range, of discrete values of the first parameter, and a second range, less than or equal to the first range, of discrete values of the second parameter to obtain a values subset from the combinations of discrete first and second operational parameter values;

deriving an optimal selection from the plurality of ballasting options for each combination in the values subset and identifying one derived ballasting option selection on the basis of a predetermined selection criteria.

2. The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the predetermined selection criteria is prevalence of a particular one of the plurality of ballasting options within the values subset.

3. The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the predetermined selection criteria is probability of occurrence of a particular one of the plurality of ballasting options within the values subset.

4. The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the predetermined selection criteria is a user selection in response to a presented visual representation of the values subset.

5. The method as claimed in claim 1 , wherein each user selectable implement identifier further identifies a first range of discrete values of a third operational parameter of the vehicle to give a values subset as combinations of discrete first, second and third operational parameter values prior to the step of deriving an optimal selection.

6. The method as claimed in claim 1 , further comprising storing an identified one ballasting option selection by reference to an identifier for an individual coupled agricultural implement.

7. The method as claimed in claim 6 , further comprising adding to the user selectable menu an implement identifier for said individual coupled agricultural implement.

8. A ballasting assistance system for an agricultural vehicle when coupled with an agricultural implement, the system comprising:

a display device;

user operable input means;

a data storage device; and

a data processing device in communication with the display device and the data storage device, the data processing device configured to select one from a plurality of stored ballasting options for the agricultural vehicle when coupled to a selected agricultural implement, by performing the steps of:

presenting to a user via the display device a menu of selectable implement identifiers;

receiving from the user operable input means selection of a presented implement identifier;

within a first range of discrete values of a first operational parameter of the vehicle and a first range of discrete values of a second operational parameter of the vehicle, using the user-selected identifier to look up in the data storage device a second range, less than or equal to the first range, of discrete values of the first parameter, and a second range, less than or equal to the first range, of discrete values of the second parameter to obtain a values subset from the combinations of discrete first and second operational parameter values;

deriving an optimal selection from the plurality of ballasting options for each combination in the values subset and identifying one derived ballasting option selection on the basis of a predetermined selection criteria.

9. The ballasting assistance system as claimed in claim 8 , wherein the user operable input means and display device are combined in a touch screen device and the received identifier is obtained from a look-up table in the data storage device in response to user selection via the touch screen from a menu of implement types displayed.

10. A data storage device carrying data defining a software utility, said software utility when loaded to a data processing device in communication with a display device providing a ballasting assistance system for an agricultural vehicle coupled with an agricultural implement in which system the data processing device is configured to select one from a plurality of stored ballasting options for the agricultural vehicle when coupled to the agricultural implement, by performing the steps of:

presenting to a user a menu of selectable implement identifiers;

within a first range of discrete values of a first operational parameter of the vehicle and a first range of discrete values of a second operational parameter of the vehicle, using a user-selected identifier from said menu to look up a second range, less than or equal to the first range, of discrete values of the first parameter, and a second range, less than or equal to the first range, of discrete values of the second parameter to obtain a values subset from the combinations of discrete first and second operational parameter values;

deriving an optimal selection from the plurality of ballasting options for each combination in the values subset and identifying one derived ballasting option selection on the basis of a predetermined selection criteria.