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 we ever did without them – as most farmers who use precision technology wonder how they got along without it in the past.
I talked with Mike about how precision technology saves time as well as money. Sometimes it may be hard to put a dollar value on our time, but when planting or harvesting windows are as tight as they were last year, saving time in the fields is saving money. “When you start implementing precision ag technologies, it’s amazing how much time you can save,” Mike said. “You think of the steering systems. You’re reducing overlap, that’s obvious, but if you can make less passes across the field then it’s saving you time.”
Also, steering systems allow farmers to work longer hours with less fatigue. “So if you have a good window of a dry stretch it allows you to work longer into the night and plant longer or spray longer,” he added. Time savings may be one of those things that’s hard to monetize, “but if you don’t get a crop in, it’s pretty easy to see how much value there is.”
Listen to my interview with Mike from Commodity Classic below.