Time for another Precision.AgWired.com Profile where we spotlight a farmer who is taking advantage of the technologies in precision agriculture. Meet Bob Haselwood, a crop from Kansas and treasurer for the United Soybean Board. I met Bob at the recent National Association of Farm Broadcasting’s Trade Talk.

“We are using precision agriculture. We started about 2001. The first step we thought we would do was get a yield monitor and work from there. Over in our county the conservation district had some programs to encourage people to use precision based fertilizer. We went in thinking we were going to ease into it using only yield monitors for records. But quickly moved to grid sampling and variable rate application of phosphate in about a years time.”

Bob’s farm was part of the hard hit areas in terms of the drought. He shared how his crop yields were almost cut in half and how they are making it through these tough times.

“We’ve got a corn/soybean operation. We were in an area that was hit pretty hard by the drought. Corn yields were pretty low. Soybeans were lucky catching some late August rains. Soybeans were about 3/4 of a crop and corn 1/4 of a crop.”

Bob said they jumped into the use of new technologies to save money, but he admits he has also saved lots of time and his body has thanked him. He enjoys coming in of an evening without all the aches and pains he was once use to.

Listen to my interview with Bob here: [wpaudio url=”http://precision.agwired.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2012/11/precision-farmer-bob-haselwood.mp3″ text=”Bob Haselwood”]

2012 NAFB Convention Photo Album

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