The new Outback AutoMate works with all Outback Guidance products to control sections of a boom or planter–while claiming a very quick ROI. The AutoMate allows you to manage up to 10 different sections of your boom and multiple planter sections. This automation results in drastic savings associated with application costs. The system recognizes both pre-defined applied zones and/or previous … Read More
5-Year Farm Equipment Depreciation Ends in 2009
There’s still time to earn quicker depreciation—as well as a 50% first year deduction—by investing in tools of precision farming if you buy and take possession of the equipment by December 31, 2009. “Machinery is normally depreciated over 7 years, but a one-year legislative change for 2009 allows for 5 year depreciation,” says Rob Holcomb, University of Minnesota Extension Educator … Read More
Variable-Rate Saves Cotton Nitrogen Costs
Cotton farmers, working with Clemson University, are achieving 30 to 50 percent nitrogen savings by side-dressing–without losing any yield, according to a recent report in Southeast Farm Press. For the past three years Clemson researchers at the Edisto Research and Education Center in Blackville, S.C., have been testing three different options for variable rate application of side-dress nitrogen on cotton. … Read More
New RTK Module Receives Tower or Cell Signals
For growers interested in the ability to receive RTK correction from either a radio base station and a cell modem connection to CORS or TopNET, Topcon offers the new AGI-3 receiver. Topcon Precision Agriculture (TPA) has released a new Real Time Kinematic (RTK) module for the Topcon AGI-3 receiver that includes the capability of receiving data from a radio base … Read More
Topcon Launches On-The-Go Crop Nutrition Sensor
Topcon introduces their version of a crop sensing system called CropSpec, but instead of reading the crop from sensors mounted on a boom (like GreenSeeker and OptRX), it features top-of-cab mounted sensors that read larger areas on both the right and left sides from the tractor/sprayer. Working with Topcon’s core competency in optics and in cooperation with Yara International (the … Read More
Six New Products From Ag Leader Technology
Last week, Ag Leader Technology made a big splash by announcing their new precision farming technology collaboration with AutoFarm. Along with that big news, they also launched six new products. Here’s a brief look. INTEGRA™ Display • Rugged, moisture-resistant design featuring a 12.1-inch full-color touchscreen with high-definition mapping. • Core functionality includes: built-in manual guidance, full-screen mapping, planter and application … Read More
Case IH Supports UW-Platteville Precision Farm
Case IH and Ritchie Implement teamed up with University of Wisconsin-Platteville (UWP) to benefit agricultural students and their studies of precision agriculture. “Access to new Case IH agriculture equipment will be a tremendous asset to Pioneer Farm – the precision farming solutions will greatly increase the productivity of our operations,” says Phil Wyse, director of Pioneer Farm. “But more so … Read More
Ag Leader Aligns With AutoFarm and Launches New Products
Big news this week in the world of precision agriculture. Ag Leader Technology not only launched new products, it announced a new alliance with AutoFarm. This new collaboration brings together popular and successful precision farming products from Ag Leader with the latest embedded and integrated steering solutions from AutoFarm. Yesterday, I caught up with company founder and President Al Myers … Read More
RapidEye Satellites Complete Pilot Crop Scan
RapidEye, the only geospatial solutions provider to own and operate a constellation of five identical Earth Observation satellites, have successfully run a Precision Farming pilot project for Agro Risk Euro Scan GmbH ( ARES ). The project is called Crop Scan and supports the German farming community in agricultural planning. ARES acts as RapidEye’s service partner for Precision Farming solutions. … Read More
GPS Accuracy: How Accurate Is Accurate?
If you’re familiar with yield mapping, automatic boom section control or other tasks that require a GPS signal, you may not truly understand how it works…or you may not care as long as it works, right! Let me simplify things. Basically, 11,000 miles from earth is a constellation of satellites (between 24 and 32 at any given time) strategically placed and … Read More