Work rate calculator
How many hectares an hour you actually cover, how long the field will take, and what time you will be finished — including the refill stops.
The job
These are broad rules of thumb, not measurements of your fields. Shape, size, headland room and how much time goes into turning move them a long way.
Refills (optional)
For spraying or liquid fertiliser. Leave the rate at zero to skip it.
Time for the job
4 h 22 min
finishes about 11:22 AM
Effective work rate
32.4 ha/h
43.2 ha/h before efficiency
In the seat
3 h 42 min
plus 40 min across 2 refill stops
Distance travelled
50 km
about 31 miles
Mixing and loads
Total volume
12,000 L
3,170 US gal
Covered per tank
40.0 ha
Refill stops
2
the first fill happens before you start, so it is not counted
Field efficiency is the weak number here
Every other input on this page you know exactly. Efficiency you guessed — and it is the one that decides the answer. At 75% this job takes 4 h 22 min; ten points either way moves that by roughly 30 min.
The way to stop guessing is to measure a real job: area covered divided by hours taken, against the theoretical rate for your width and speed. AgriPilot’s work log records both figures for every session, so after a season you can replace the estimate above with your own number.
How the calculation works
Theoretical field capacity
Width in metres multiplied by speed in km/h, divided by ten, gives hectares per hour. The ten comes straight out of the units: a metre travelled at a km/h is 1,000 m² an hour, and a hectare is 10,000 m².
In imperial the same calculation is width in feet times speed in mph divided by 8.25, which is the same relationship expressed in acres.
Field efficiency
Nobody achieves the theoretical rate. Efficiency is the share of each hour genuinely spent covering new ground, after turns at the headland, overlap between passes, slowing for obstacles, blockages and the trip back to the shed.
The presets in the tool are broad industry rules of thumb. Field shape and size move them a long way — small blocks with lots of turning sit well below big open country.
Refill stops
Total volume is area times application rate. Loads are that volume divided by tank capacity. Because you fill before you start, the number of stops is one fewer than the number of loads — 2.4 loads means two stops, not three.
What it does not include
Travel between fields, breakdowns, waiting on weather, crew breaks and the time spent mixing the first load are all outside the calculation. A planned day should carry more slack than this figure suggests.
Results are estimates from the values you enter, and are only as good as the efficiency figure you chose. Use them for planning a day, not for committing to a contract deadline. Nothing you type is sent anywhere — the inputs stay in this browser.
Measure it instead of guessing
Efficiency is the one input on this page you cannot look up — it is specific to yourfields and your machine. AgriPilot logs the area covered and the time taken for every session, so a few real jobs give you a measured figure to put in the box above instead of a rule of thumb.
See how AgriPilot works