More and more innovative agricultural companies are expanding their communications efforts into social media — from Facebook fan pages and YouTube video pages to Twitter accounts and company blogs — in an effort to further improve dialogue between customers and prospects. Ag Leader Technology kicked off a company blog this past week called Precision Point. And within the first post, … Read More
Sensors Aim to Improve Your N Use on Corn
You won’t find too many farmers who would disagree with the notion that corn plant health can vary widely across a field. And I think the majority of growers would love to improve their nitrogen fertilizer use efficiency—if only the weather would cooperate. While variable rate fertilizer based on grids/management zones and soil tests is one possible solution, that practice … Read More
Trimble Offers New RTK Accuracy Service
For US growers in nine states, Trimble launches its new VRS Now Ag service to deliver RTK sub-inch positioning via cellular communications–without the need for a local base station. Growers in Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi and Nebraska can access VRS Now Ag. Additionally, European growers can receive correction services in Great Britain, Ireland, Germany, Czech Republic … Read More
The Virtues of High Precision
During the recent Galileo Appreciation Days held in Brussels, the high degree of accuracy and precision that’s possible with EGNOS, Galileo and other GNSS technologies were celebrated, as reported by the European GNSS Supervisory Authority. “EGNOS is already a success story in the agricultural sector,” said Aguilera. “It already has 50% market share, which is expected to reach 70% by … Read More
Alliances Among Precision Ag Companies
In an effort to offer growers more complete precision farming guidance and application packages, more precision ag companies are forming alliances, as reported in a recent issue of Farm Industry News magazine. A review of recent partnership/purchase announcements highlights the trend. Ag Leader and AutoFarm; Raven Industries, SST Software, Ranchview, and Buhler Industries/Versatile; and Hemisphere GPS and Third Eye Maps … Read More
Time To Prep Your Precision Farming Equipment
As you gear up for planting season, it’s wise to power up, check out and test your monitors, displays and other valuable electronic components before seed enters the planter and you head to the field. I talked to Nick Ohrtman this week, technical support supervisor for Ag Leader Technology. He said a good place to start is to check the … Read More
Sustainability — Will It Change Agriculture
Is sustainability reshaping agriculture? Will it affect your operation? That debate was front and center at a Case-IH sponsored forum during the recent Ag Connect Expo. “We recognize sustainability is a huge buzz word, it means a lot of things to a lot of people, and one panel discussion won’t answer all the questions surrounding this issue,” said Jim Walker, … Read More
Operations Suffer Without Precision Farming Tools
“Agriculture is an ever-changing industry, and if we don’t stay on top of the new technology and new equipment, our operations will suffer,” says John Chester, a Martin, Tenn., grower–and winner of National Farm Bureau Federation’s 2008 Excellence in Agriculture Award. Speaking at the Precision Farming Field Day at University of Tennessee-Martin, Chester urged a crowd of more than 200 … Read More
Precision.AgWired.com by Time Saving
This photo was taken of me with Ag Leader general sales manager Mike Olson at the Commodity Classic as we both checked email on our cell phones to prepare for an interview. Amazing what technology we have in our pockets these days! Some people may argue whether cell phones actually make us more efficient, but most of us wonder what … Read More
Precision Podcast from Commodity Classic
Iowa Soybean Association (ISA) Director of Research Tracy Blackmer was one of the presenters for the PrecisonAg Learning Center at the 2010 Commodity Classic trade show. Tracy is head of ISA’s On-Farm Network®, which focuses on precision agriculture tools and technology to collect information that can increase growers’ profits from crop production and I interviewed him at Classic for this … Read More