Trimble Offers New Ag Water Management System

Kurt LawtonCompany Announcement, Conservation, Irrigation, Planting, Tillage, Trimble

If your farm operation needs precision farming equipment that can help manage water, check out the new Trimble AG GCS200 system.

Specifically designed for land leveling and drainage applications, it works in conjunction with a laser transmitter to provide automatic machine control of implements such as scrapers and drainage machines, helping farmers to manage water on their fields regardless of crop type or water requirements.

The system is ideal for implements with PT valves, and can use either dual rigid mast control, or single electric mast control. Key components include the LR410 laser receiver and the new CB60 control box, providing a digital elevation display that can be used in both survey and control modes.

The CB60 control box delivers greater flexibility than its predecessors with configuration options for both surveying and grading. Owners of existing control systems can use the CB60 box as a drop-in replacement product, so customers with existing P.A. Laser Grade Control systems do not need any new cables or components.

The AG GCS200 system and the CB60 control box are compatible with English or Metric units and can be used with several types of laser controlled water management and field-leveling products.

“Drainage and leveling professionals have experienced that through the use of laser-guided leveling and drainage equipment, they can substantially improve productivity and accuracy as well as provide the grower with increased crop yields,” said Erik Arvesen, vice president and general manager for Trimble’s Agriculture Division. “Now, the AG GCS200 makes it easier to keep laser-leveling equipment operational and productive on scraper and drainage type implements in the field.”

The AG GCS200 system and the CB60 control box are available now. Contact a local Trimble dealer at: www.trimble.com/locator for more information.

Ag Leader Announces Four New Product Offerings

Kurt LawtonAg Leader, Company Announcement, Displays, GPS, Software

Ag Leader Technology announces four new product offerings.

1. The GPS 2500 all-in-one antenna and GNSS receiver.
The new GPS 2500 features a dual frequency receiver and the capability to receive WAAS/EGNOS, OmniSTAR XP/HP/VBS and GLONASS satellite signals. The receiver also supports e-Dif for areas where other differential signals aren’t available.

“Providing the option for OmniSTAR differential correction makes the GPS 2500 an affordable receiver option that can still provide a high level of accuracy in the field,” says GPS and Guidance Product Manager, Matt Leinen. “The GPS 2500 is also GLONASS capable, giving the receiver more satellites to communicate with and ultimately helping increase run-time in the field.”

The GPS 2500 offers a complement to the built-in guidance capabilities of Ag Leader’s EDGE™ and INTEGRA™ displays and is ideal for the accuracy necessary for precision farming features such as
AutoSwath™. Additional features of the GPS 2500 include fast start-up and reacquisition times and magnetic mounting.

2. February 2011 addition of OnTrac2(TM) assisted steering support to the INTEGRA(TM) display. Support of the OnTrac2 steering system is a valuable complement to the full featured, year-round precision farming display.

“Many growers are moving their INTEGRA display between vehicles, but they may not have a need for a hydraulic steering system on all of these machines,” says GPS and Guidance Product Manager, Matt
Leinen. “Now, growers will have the option of adding OnTrac2 assisted steering to these vehicles with a simple installation process. The split-gear design of OnTrac2 doesn’t require removal of the steering wheel, but instead simply latches on and off.”

OnTrac2 eliminates skips and overlaps, lowers fuel consumption and reduces operator fatigue. The high-torque, positive gear drive of the OnTrac2 delivers the turning power needed for the most demanding of agricultural vehicles and eliminates slippage that is typical of friction motor steering systems.

Adding support for OnTrac2 to the INTEGRA display will provide growers an economical option for adding assisted steering to tractors, combines, application rigs and more – and the system can be easily transferred between implements with its “Lock-N’-Roll” installation.

3. Latest functionality added to the INTEGRA(TM) display – compatibility with the ISO 11783 (ISOBUS) Virtual Terminal Standard, available February 2011. This functionality enables support of many ISOBUS compliant implements on the INTEGRA display.

“We’re excited to give growers the option to control additional implements with one tool by offering Virtual Terminal capability on the INTEGRA display,” says John Howard, Product Manager. “Virtual Terminal functionality enables the compliant implement’s user interface to be viewed and controlled on the INTEGRA display. The INTEGRA display has been specifically designed so users can easily toggle between the Virtual Terminal run screen and the advanced mapping, guidance, and control functionality supported on the INTEGRA run screen.”

4. A new mobile display compatible with SMS Mobile – the Mesa Rugged Notepad. The waterproof, impact-resistant notepad is built specifically for field use and offers a brilliant, sunlight readable screen.

“This device offers users more than just a PDA; the Mesa is a digital notepad made specifically for field work,” says Director of Software Solutions, Corey Weddle. “The Mesa provides the most flexibility for running SMS Mobile; the large 5.7” screen offers easy operation but doesn’t compromise its portability. In addition, the Windows Mobile 6.5.3 operating system provides a streamlined, more responsive interface that is very finger friendly.”

Additional features of the Mesa include Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless technology, as well as a built-in camera and GPS, making it ideal for the in-field operations of SMS Mobile. The Mesa notepad also offers two batteries, allowing for run-time of up to 16 hours. The Mesa will be available for purchase with SMS Mobile from Ag Leader beginning in mid-late November.

Raven OmniRow Delivers Total Planting Control

Kurt LawtonCompany Announcement, Displays, Guidance, Planting, Raven

We talked briefly about the numerous new products from Raven during our Farm Progress Show coverage, but wanted to give you a closer look at several of them.

For variable-rate seeding and planter control, check out the new OmniRow planter control, which works in sync with the company’s new Envizio Pro II field computer and optional Slingshot RTK/Online service.

Population control by row. Variable-rate seeding, automatic on-off planter control and real-time seed monitoring can be managed by individual rows or section. Everything you need for higher yields and eliminating costly skips, doubles and overplants.

In the zone. With OmniRow’s real-time seed monitoring and singulation ability, helping you maintain optimum tractor speed for maximum yields and efficiency is a snap. You’ll also know immediately when something’s amiss, so you can keep little things from becoming costly mistakes.

Better records. Better decisions. Documentation and mapping capability allows you to compare seed hybrid/variety selection and pest management and fertilization practices to get the very most out of your fields. With Raven’s new SmartYield yield monitoring system you don’t have to take our word for it. Come harvest time. You’ll know.

Improve your existing system. If you have a planter control system, OmniRow can make it better by using existing factory installed or after-market components. Three levels of readiness to meet your equipment needs. Available today for most popular models—and expanding.

Check out more key features and benefits.

Give Us Your Opinion – Get Chance to Win $250

Joanna SchroederCompany Announcement

Have you ever wished you could help mold the content of your favorite blog? Well, here is your chance. The bloggers of Precision.AgWired.com want to learn more about its readers, so we can provide you with more informational and insightful information. All you have to do is take our quick 5 minute survey. Once completed, you can enter to win $250 in cash.

As with any contest, there are a few rules. Each month, one winner will be drawn from the entries received for all ZimmComm news website surveys. Non-winners from each month will roll over to the next month, so please only take the survey once. Ready to get started? Then click here to begin.

Speaking of molding content, here is our poll question for the month. Which precision farming tools do you currently use in your farm operations? You can sound off by posting a comment to this story, or sending your response to PPPoll@hotmail.com. Select answers will be used in an upcoming story for the blog.

Thanks for reading Precision.AgWired.com and don’t forget to take our survey for a chance to win $250 in cash.

Precision.AgWired.com: FileMaker Software Helps Manage Herds

John DavisAg Leader, Audio, Precision Pays Podcast

Precision.AgWired.com Podcast

In this edition of the Precision.AgWired.com Podcast, sponsored by Ag Leader Technology, we take a look at a piece of software and iPhone and iPad application that is helping at least one manager of a herd of cattle be more precise.

Everyone wants to be more efficient in how they handle data. Whether you’re multi-national corporation or just a single podcaster, you need to have a way to manage the information you collect on your business, so you can apply the data that you’ve gathered to how you operate. Paul Nehring, the owner of NewGrass Farm near Wausau, Wisconsin found FileMaker, which is helping him manage his 40-head-a-year operation of grass-fed cattle and market that beef.

“There’s just a tremendous amount of data that we all like to keep, whether you’re doing crops or pasture or cattle,” Nehring says. He says the beauty of FileMaker is that it has applications for the iPhone that allow him to put in his information, right out there in the field. That saves him anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes of work at the end of each very long day, and over the course of a year, that could add up to a couple of weeks worth of work.

FileMaker’s Vice President of Marketing and Services Ryan Rosenberg describes as the “world’s easiest to use database for individuals and work groups,” and points out that while the software wasn’t specifically designed for agricultural purposes, it’s ability to handle data makes it ideally suited for those purposes.

“If you’re running a farm, how different are you really than someone manufacturing ice cream?” He says you have to keep track of raw materials, customers, workflow and products, as well as finances. All of that can be managed with FileMaker.

Rosenberg adds that since most folks in the world are not I-T experts, they’ve designed Filemaker to be easy for anyone to use.

More information is available at www.FileMaker.com.

You can hear you can hear more about what they both have to say about this precision tool in this edition of the Precision.AgWired.com Podcast it in the player below below. [wpaudio url=”http://zimmcomm.biz/precision/precision-podcast-14.mp3″ text=”Precision.AgWired.com Podcast”]

You can subscribe to the Precision.AgWired.com Podcast here.

Precision Steering Control Benefits Fall Applications

Kurt LawtonAg Leader, Displays, GPS, Guidance, Insights Weekly, Satellite, Spraying

Insights WeeklyPrecision steering, whether assisted technology attached to the steering wheel or fully automated steering wired into hydraulics, can give you improved pass-to-pass accuracy, time and money savings, and less operator fatigue.

I spoke the other day with Jeff Bentley, Ag Leader Technology’s sales manager for GPS Guidance and Steering, to get his take on the usefulness of non-human steering in the fall.

He told me there are three major areas that auto steer technology can benefit a farmer in the fall—combining, field tillage and fall fertilization. And you don’t necessarily need the higher cost RTK differential correction signal.

OnTrac

“In the combine, either our OnTrac2 assisted steering system or our advanced ParaDyme automated steering will benefit anyone with a platform head to keep it completely full of soybeans or wheat during harvest,” Bentley says. “We have some customers who also use RTK to guide a corn head down rows that were planted using RTK auto steer.”

ParaDyme

When it comes to fall tillage, many growers have done some on-farm testing with automated steering. “The results growers tend to see when comparing manual steering to auto steering usually range from three percent up to 10 percent greater efficiency. And you can use a wide range of signals, from the free WAAS signal to OmniSTAR to RTK.”

The third fall application that benefits from auto steer is fertilization. “Growers use it when applying anhydrous, when using a spinner-spreader and especially when applying fertilizer as part of a strip-till operation, using RTK so they can come back and plant exactly over the top next spring,” Bentley says.

To control these systems, Bentley says the OnTrac2 uses the EDGE display. For the ParaDyme, you can use either the EDGE or the INTEGRA display. “And with either display you can add DirectCommand for section control and rate control for anhydrous bars and strip-till air carts.”

Bentley says if you haven’t invested in steering technology yet, its year-around uses will deliver greater efficiency, fuel savings, input savings, time savings and especially less operator fatigue.

Visit these links for more information.

ParaDyme and OnTrac2 http://www.agleader.com/products/steering/

INTEGRA http://www.agleader.com/products/integra/

EDGE http://www.agleader.com/products/edge/

PepsiCo Unveils Global Precision Farming Plans

Kurt LawtonCompany Announcement, Farmers, Fertilizer, GPS, International, Irrigation, sustainability, Variable rate

Yes, PepsiCo, one of the world’s largest food and beverage companies, is working with farmers in Europe by rolling out its i-crop precision farming program.

PepsiCo announced plans to roll-out its new i-crop farming technology on a global basis. The web-based tool, which was developed by PepsiCo in conjunction with Cambridge University, United Kingdom, is a crop management system that will enable PepsiCo’s farmers around the world to monitor, manage and reduce their water use and carbon emissions, while also maximizing potential yield and quality.

Trials of i-crop are currently underway at 22 farms in the U.K., where PepsiCo yesterday announced ambitious plans to reduce carbon emissions and water usage by 50 percent across the farming of its core crops in the next five years.

The technology will be rolled-out in Europe in 2011. The company hopes to take it to India, China, Mexico and Australia by 2012.

As one of the world’s largest food and beverage businesses, with brands including Quaker, Tropicana, Gatorade, Pepsi-Cola and Frito-Lay, PepsiCo is a major investor in global farming. In 2010, the company announced 15 global goals and commitments to guide its work to protect the Earth’s natural resources through innovation and more efficient use of land, energy, water and packaging.

In the U.K., the company is the largest purchaser of British potatoes and one of the largest purchasers of British oats and apples, using 100 percent British produce in Walkers crisps, Copella English Apple juice, Quaker Oats, Oatso Simple and Scott’s porage.

Richard Evans, President of PepsiCo U.K. and Ireland said, “Farming is in the DNA of our business – we rely on fresh produce every day. Finding ways to produce more food with less environmental impact is essential to our future.” He added, “i-crop has the potential to revolutionize the way we farm, enabling our farmers to save costs and water and carbon consumption, while at the same time improving their yields. I am immensely proud of this innovation which I hope will also benefit PepsiCo farmers around the world.”

In its first Sustainable Farming Report published yesterday, PepsiCo U.K. outlined how it is working in partnership with its 350 British farmers to reach its aim of ’50 in 5′. Other initiatives announced include trials of new low-carbon fertilizers and plans to replace more than 75 percent of PepsiCo U.K.’s current potato stock with varieties that will significantly improve farmers’ yields and decrease wastage by 2015. A full copy of the report is available for download at www.pepsico.co.uk/farming.

Commenting on the PepsiCo U.K. sustainable farming report, Richard Perkins, Senior Commodities Adviser at WWF said, “The food industry is starting to recognize that in order to fully embed sustainability and biodiversity in its business practices, a large part of the focus must be on the agricultural supply chain. In this respect PepsiCo U.K. has taken a leadership role in recognizing that it is, at its heart, an agricultural business. The focus of the business on improving its key environmental impacts, such as greenhouse gas emissions – in the field and on the farm – is most welcome.”

For further information about i-crop visit: www.i-crop.com

i-crop will be rolled-out to the following markets in 2011:

Holland
France
Germany
Belgium
Spain
Portugal
Turkey

New European TalkingFields Service Offers Real Advice

Kurt LawtonAerial Imagery, Fertilizer, GPS, International, Remote sensing, Satellite, Variable rate

A European Space Agency (ESA) project , TalkingFields, aims to takes satellite observations of fields and provide actionable advice to farmers throughout the growing season.

The TalkingFields initiative is now showing how to combine satellite observation with satellite navigation to benefit European farmers.
Sustainable food production and food security are critical challenges. TalkingFields will help by using precision farming methods to produce crops more efficiently. For instance, by optimising farmers’ use of fertiliser and giving early warning of plant disease risks, both costs and environmental impacts can be reduced.

“There are existing services variously employing Earth observation data, satellite navigation, farm management software and crop growth models, but TalkingFields is the first to combine them all,” said ESA’s Tony Sephton.

“We’re setting up an end-to-end service that is simple to use and sufficiently cost-effective to be self-sustaining.”

How does it work? The farmer requests the service for an area defined using satnav. Satellites gather information on the land’s potential – observations over several years can reveal variations in crop growth through soil changes – as well as current crop status.

These results are combined with information from field sensors such as weather conditions and soil moisture. The farmer adds in his own knowledge, and in return receives detailed satnav instructions on where and how much fertiliser to spray, for example.

A variety of satellites can be employed, although priority will be given to free data sources such as Landsat and ESA’s forthcoming Sentinel-2 satellites, due for launch in 2012.

“Ideally, we might have weekly satellite acquisitions, but cloud cover makes that unfeasible,” explained Dr Sephton.

“Instead, we need only two to four satellite images per growing season, which are fed into a sophisticated crop growth model.

“With TalkingFields the emphasis is on service: we’re not giving raw satellite data straight to farmers. Instead, we advise them directly on actions to be taken throughout the growing season.”

Read more

New Variable-Rate Prescription Software Service

Kurt LawtonCompany Announcement, Dealers, Fertilizer, Planting, Retailers, Software, Spraying, Variable rate

Designed for dealers, crop consultants and other ag professionals, new FieldRx is a web-based precision farming engine that creates customized site-specific recommendations for any crop.

Just in time to begin soil sampling in preparation for the 2011 growing season, FieldRx is bringing crop consultants and agricultural dealers a more user-friendly program for writing custom fertilizer prescriptions. Designed by ag professionals for ag professionals, FieldRx was created to eliminate the frustrations with existing precision ag software programs while providing concise grower reports and smaller controller files.

“We’re really excited about bringing FieldRx to market because of the solutions and time-savings it’s going to bring to crop consultants and dealers,” said David Krueger of Ag Software Designs. “FieldRx will streamline the process for using VRT data and making custom recommendations to growers.

A highlight of the FieldRx engine is the ease of uploading field borders and sample points. In addition, lab results can be imported directly into FieldRx from some labs without the user having to manually obtain and upload the data.

“Our goal in developing FieldRx was to put users first by saving them time and eliminating the potential for human error that can arise from manual data input,” said Lance Ramthun of Ag Software Designs. “A lot of VRT programs currently on the market are extremely time-consuming to set up, and one wrong click while inputting data can be very costly for dealers.”

FieldRx boasts a minimal learning curve for users, who only need access to the web to get started. Furthermore, users don’t need a high-level of computer proficiency to operate the program.

“We know software and new technologies can be very intimidating to users, especially if there is a lot of potential for error,” said David Hydrick of Ag Software Designs. “People are going to be extremely satisfied with how easy FieldRx is to use.”

In addition to soil test recommendations, the FieldRx engine has the power to support many other variables for prescription writing in future releases. Other capabilities include web services that are available for other vendor’s software tools to upload data directly to FieldRx.

For more information about FieldRx, please visit www.fieldrx.com or call (888) 336-0029.

United Voice for Agriculture

Cindy ZimmermanAg Group

More than 60 representatives from more 20 national food and agricultural organizations have agreed to form the U.S. Farmers and Ranchers Alliance (USFRA) to focus on working together to enhance U.S. consumer trust in modern food production that ensures the abundance of affordable, safe food.

Rick Tolman, CEO of the National Corn Growers Association and chair of the USFRA Steering Committee, says the new organization represents a start toward a unified voice for U.S. agriculture. “It is only the beginning of a process designed to create a coordinated effort by and on behalf of U.S. farmers and ranchers. Several participants have stepped forward to officially join the Alliance. Others need to return to their boards to determine whether they will join.”

USFRA officially incorporated last week and oganizations have been asked to respond about affiliation no later than November 1. After that date, a board of directors will be established and will elect an executive committee.

Tolman says USFRA hopes to have its first campaign up and running shortly after the first of the year and will be sending out an RFP for a management organization to handle coordination since there are no plans to create a full time staff. He says they really hope to take advantage of the efforts already started by many organizations and coordinate them in a unified way so that consumers hear the same message.

Listen to an interview with Tolman about the new group here: [wpaudio url=”http://zimmcomm.biz/usfra/usfra-tolman.mp3″ text=”Rick Tolman Interview”]