“Precision Planting’s business is trying to make sure seeds get into the right space at the right distance and seeds only land where they need to land,” Precision Planting’s Jason Larkin explained to me during the Farm Progress Show. We use precision technology to know where the tractor is at and where the plant is at to control population, so we can increase or decrease populations based on soil types, continued Larkin.
In addition, they use swath control, or the ability to turn individual rows on and off using GPS so that a farmer who is planting corn doesn’t overlap. This helps to eliminate yield loss that comes from over planting as well as saves farmers on their seed costs.
In a corn husk, pardon my pun, Precision Planting uses variable rate technology to help farmers understand how to pick the right population for the area they’re in. And this is important. “For every percentage improvement we can give someone for accuracy, from 95 percent of the seeds placed correctly to 97 percent of the seeds placed correctly, that equals a $10 per bushel yield advantage.”
You can listen to my interview with John Larkin here. [wpaudio url=”http://zimmcomm.biz/farm-progress/fps-10-larkin.mp3″ text=”John Larking Talks Precision Planting”]