Precision Podcast Takes to the Air with the Autocopter

John DavisAerial Imagery, Ag Leader, Audio, Precision Pays Podcast

The latest in precision agriculture might not be at the ground level, turning the soil.  It might come just a few feet above the top of the crops in the form of the Autocopter.

In this edition of the Precision.AgWired.com Podcast, sponsored by Ag Leader Technology, we talk to Autocopter president Donald Effren, who describes how this little helicopter with a five-foot blade-span operating at about 25 feet above the ground brings farmers and ranchers a level of sophistication that has its roots in the high-tech Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, better known as UAVs, that the military has been flying in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Effren says his aircraft is actually more stable than some of its military cousins.  And with controls that are easier to operate than most hobby shop model helicopters and a price tag of $30,000, in line with most farm implements, this little dynamo could be the next big thing in precision agriculture.

Listen to the podcast in the player below to find out more about the Autocopter. You can subscribe to the Precision.AgWired.com Podcast here.

Calibrate For Variable-Rate Precision Farming Success

Kurt LawtonAg Leader, Corn, Displays, Education, Equipment, Insights Weekly, Planting, seed, Soybeans

Insights WeeklyWhile every farmer knows the value of preparing and calibrating the planter and sprayer, the same holds true when calibrating the electronics and software that control these implements—especially if you vary rates across the field on the go.

Hopefully you pulled out that owner’s manual, or enlisted your local dealer’s help, several weeks ahead of pulling into the first field with a planter full of seed. “The equipment only works as well as the set-up, so running the calibration software on your monitors should be an annual event,” says Nick Ohrtman, Technical Support Supervisor for Ag Leader Technology.

Since there’s no real standard procedure when calibrating for variable-rate technology, it is critical that you follow the guidelines in the owner’s manual of both the piece of equipment and the monitor that is driving it. “Our display monitors, like the Insight or INTEGRA, have a calibration wizard that walks you through seed meter calibration, allowing you to count the actual seed that drops per revolution, which is critical for variable-rate seeding” he says.

“If your variable-rate monitor is set to plant 34,000 seeds and the population monitor says you’re only seeding 30,000, then that’s a sign that the calibration was done inaccurately. If this happens with our system, when both monitors are running through our display, an alarm sounds when the populations don’t match up,” Ohrtman adds.

Granted, most calibration settings made are saved by crop, but it is still wise to recalibrate every year for each crop. “Once you’ve calibrated for corn and soybeans, then every field will use the same calibration. And the calibration doesn’t change when you’re switching plant populations,” he adds.

For growers using planter section or row shut-off technology, it’s advised to make sure your settings are correct each year. “With our AutoSwath system, there are three different settings available, so it’s wise to check the owner’s manual every year, as well as do a dig check in the soil on the first round to make sure the row shut-offs are working correctly.” Nick talks about tips for using AutoSwath in his blog post here.
For more information:
Calibrating Equipment for Variable-Rate Application

Variable Rate Equipment – Technology for Weed Control

Gear Up For VRT (Farm Journal, March 2009)

Precision Profits By The Field

Kurt LawtonEducation, Financing

Gregg Carlson, South Dakota State University agronomist and precision farming math whiz, has written extensively about numerous precision topics. “A Field is a Profit Center,” is an amazing spreadsheet look at the agronomic-economic building blocks that make fields profitable.

Very few farmers conduct profitability analysis of their fields. As producers expand beyond their operator owned acreage, it becomes increasingly necessary to know input – output economics so that an appropriate value can be paid for land rental. Conducting whole field profit center analysis will improve management decisions and answer management questions.

Analysis of a field’s line by line input – output is the very basis of the process of building greater agronomic – economic understanding and ultimately profitability. Discussed in this guide is a simple, cost effective (time and money), and understandable method that will enable most producers to analyze the profitability of a field. An Excel spreadsheet is used for the field cost accounting analysis.

The Field Profit Center accounting method demonstrated in this guideline is a simplification of the economic analysis accomplished by more complex approaches. It does, however, lead to a far more complex analysis of the agronomic – economic (rather than just the economic covered by most analysis) building blocks that make a field profitable.

Every line of a Profit Center Analysis must be evaluated for both economic and agronomic considerations. This thought is perhaps the most profound of this discussion. Profit center analysis is the umbrella analysis with an extensive array of subordinate agronomic – economic analysis subordinate to it. A 1000 acre corn producer must strive to save $5/acre of production costs (without impacting production) or strive to make an additional $5/acre by increasing production on all farmed acres. When a 1000 acre producer obtains this goal he will earn himself $5000 (a bonus). Top profitability farmers understand this.

To understand the details, read his entire paper.

Young Farmer Forum Talks Precision Agriculture

Kurt LawtonEquipment, Farmers, Fertilizer, GPS, Guidance, Harvesting, Planting, Satellite, Software, Standards, sustainability

Agriculture.com, one of the longest running ag websites powered by Successful Farming, has a social network for young and beginning farmers called Farmers For The Future. One of the recent topics centered around precision farming talks about a move into RTK and the CORS network.

The challenge is dealing with all ages and different colors of equipment. Sam asks…We have three green combines 1 newer the 2nd is 10-11 years old and the other is a dinosaur and the newer one being the only one with yield mapping through waas signal using original brown box from JD ( never right ). Next we have 2 Planting tractors both have 20/20 seed sense systems from precision no GPS. Sprayer we have a XLRD 1000 Pull Type pulled by a JD 4430 with a INSight and an EZ-Guide 500 waas signal. Spreader truck we have a Insight along with EZ- Guide Plus. Now I must say that it looks like we just put a down payment on a 06 Apache with auto steer by Raven. Also a new red combine is probably coming this fall 8120 Case and we are talking about buying a new corn planter also.. we put a lot of tile in we bought a tile plow.. No GPS also we have a 8530 JD autosteer ready for doing a lot of tillage and side dressing corn with anhydrous. 9520 T John Deere does a good majority of the tillage and also runs the tile plow. Now you see my situation figure out a plan for that to move into RTK.

Several growers have responded here.  Take a visit and weigh in with your advice.

AgChat Is Way To Agvocate

Chuck ZimmermanInternet

I don’t know how many of our Precision.AgWired.com readers are aware of AgChat or have participated but perhaps it’s time you check it out. AgChat is a weekly Twitter conversation from 8-10pm eastern. All you have to do is follow the Twitter hashtag, #AgChat, and feel free to join in. AgChat is nearing its one year anniversary and it has helped energize and inspire many farmers to engage online to agvocate for their industry using social networking tools like Twitter and Facebook. If you’re using precision technology then you’ll find using social networking tools very easy to adopt.

Last week the AgChat Foundation was announced. This farmer led group “is designed to empower more farmers to leverage social media as a tool to tell agriculture’s story. The Foundation will educate and equip farmers and ranchers with the skill set needed to effectively engage on Twitter, Facebook, blogs, YouTube, Linkedin and other social media services. It will give them knowledge to unlock new tools to effectively tell their story. Research shows that social media is a growing opportunity for farmers to have a stronger voice in educating people about the business of growing food, fuel, feed and fiber.” You can find more information on the AgChat Foundation website.

Let’s meet board member Mike Haley. Mike is a fifth generation grain and cattle farmer in northern Ohio. Mike believes not only in raising healthy crops and animals, but also working to ensure that future generations will be able to continue to do the same. This not only means that Mike must continuously work to ensure that his farm is operating in a sustainable way, but also that others understand what farmers are doing on a daily basis to ensure that they are acting in a socially acceptable manner. “Social media is a valuable tool that allows us to communicate with others across the country about our farming operation while we are working on daily tasks.” In my interview with Mike we talk about farmer use of social media and what we hope to accomplish with the AgChat Foundation.

You can listen to my interview with Mike here.

Use Precision Software Data For Planting Trials and More

Kurt LawtonAg Leader, Corn, Farmers, Fertilizer, GPS, Guidance, Harvesting, Insights Weekly, Planting, seed, Software, Tillage

Insights WeeklyGive farmers a piece of technology and they find inventive ways to use it to benefit their operation. In the case of Newton, Iowa farmer (and Ag Leader SeedComand product specialist) Will Cannon, it all started with the yield monitor and mapping hybrids.

“I like knowing exactly to a row when hybrids and varieties start and stop—especially when you have to switch near the end of a field—so when you analyze yield results you know why the yields went up or down,” Cannon says. “That practice led to conducting strip trials across whole fields. And I often plug in all my hybrid/variety numbers into the monitor before I head to the field so changing numbers and fields is simple.”

And Will does a lot more than just track yields. “Last year we conducted alternate strips across a field to compare no-till and strip-till soybeans. We set up and mapped alternate passes of strip-till in the fall, came back in the spring, locked in with auto-steer to fertilize and plant into the strips, then no-till plant in-between those passes,” he says.

Cannon likes having all that mapped in the spring, because come harvest he doesn’t have to worry about where the combine is in the field. “I can just harvest and not worry about anything else, because I trust the monitor and data gathering.” Then during post-harvest into winter he crunches data. “I really like the capabilities of the SMS software. There are great tools I can use to select which passes across the field I want to analyze and compare. And I learned a lot about what tillage systems work best in specific fields.”

Another data layer is tracking his refuge management acres. I see this as becoming more and more important, as different hybrids change percentage of refuge acres, plus if I get audited I can direct them exactly to where they need to take tissue samples. And exact location is a big help if I need to apply insecticides on those acres,” he says.

Cannon continues to be impressed with the flexibility built into today’s software and data recording capabilities. “You have a lot of features to document things, so you don’t have to remember it all. And as more growers learn the capabilities, they figure out new ways to use it—because what appeals to one grower may be the opposite of what another guy wants. And the history of data that you build up is invaluable in the future.”

Precision Irrigation Control With Smartphones

Kurt LawtonCompany Announcement, Irrigation, Software

Irrigators can now control their Lindsay Zimmatic systems with their smartphone and FieldNET Mobile.

The new feature allows growers to fully control and monitor their irrigation pivots anywhere through the convenience of smartphones.

“FieldNET Mobile provides a labor-saving innovation with the convenience of web-enabled phones,” says Reece Andrews, GrowSmart product manager at Lindsay. “With full control and monitoring from anywhere, growers are more efficient with their time and always know the status of their irrigation systems.”

FieldNET Mobile’s graphical interface supports most industry-leading smartphones, including the iPhone, Droid and BlackBerry, according to Andrews.

FieldNET is an award-winning web-based irrigation management system. With the addition of FieldNET Mobile, growers can view the current status of all their pivots in one list, receive system alerts, arrange pivots by predefined groups, view water usage reports and receive a history of pivot runtimes.

“FieldNET Mobile is very easy to set up and features intuitive color-coded graphics that show growers in-depth pivot information,” Andrews says. “With simple touch navigation, users can quickly control pivot operations over their phone, saving them labor and making irrigation management convenient and easy from virtually anywhere.”

FieldNET Mobile is available as an upgrade in all areas serviced by FieldNET.

For more information, contact your local Zimmatic dealer or visit www.lindsayfieldnet.com.

April 2 Cutoff For Alabama Precision Farming Incentives

Kurt LawtonGeneral

Alabama State Conservationist Dr. William Puckett with USDA-NRCS announced tomorrow, April 2, 2010, as the cutoff date for signup for the Precision Farming Incentive under the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP). Applying for EQIP is continuous; however, selecting applications for funding is completed periodically through batching periods with specific cutoff dates.

The Precision Farming Incentive is designed to encourage the adoption of variable-rate application of nutrients and pesticides and promote the use of GPS-enabled precision agricultural technology and equipment. The goals of the Precision Farming Incentive include improving water quality by targeting areas for reduced nutrient and pesticide application, reducing runoff and leaching of pesticides, enhancing soil quality through reduced erosion and soil compaction and energy conservation through accurate and efficient application of crop inputs. The Alabama Cooperative Extension System (ACES) is partnering on this initiative.

Under the Precision Farming Incentive, cropland producing annually planted crops in the following counties is eligible for 2010: Autauga, Baldwin, Barbour, Blount, Cherokee, Coffee, Colbert, Covington, Dale, Dallas, DeKalb, Elmore, Escambia, Etowah, Fayette, Franklin, Geneva, Henry, Houston, Jackson, Lamar, Lauderdale, Lawrence, Limestone, Madison, Marengo, Marion, Marshall, Mobile, Monroe, Montgomery, Morgan, Pickens, and Russell.

Interested producers should visit their nearest USDA Service Center to determine eligibility. Individuals are not eligible for EQIP until they have completed the Farm Bill eligibility requirements. Contact your local Natural Resources Conservation Service office or Farm Service Agency Office to begin this process. NRCS field offices are listed in the telephone directory under U.S. Department of Agriculture or on-line at http://offices.sc.egov.usda.gov.

Ag Leader Technology Expands Social Media Communications

Kurt LawtonAg Leader, Company Announcement, Education, Resources

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, the company also provides links to their Twitter, Facebook and YouTube pages.

“The reality is social media is the way people are communicating today. These platforms allow us not only to inform and educate, but to have a conversation with those interested in precision farming technology,” says Dave King, Marketing Manager. “We can connect with Ag Leader customers around the globe, but also others in the ag industry as well as those who know nothing about precision agriculture.”

Precision Point, found at www.agleader.com/blog, will offer readers a wide variety of topics and precision ag information. The company will share insights into popular questions on getting started in precision technology, trends in the industry as well as international precision ag use.

“Social media adoption can be compared to the adoption of automated steering technology – warp speed. We felt this step was necessary to stay close to our customers as well as continue the precision ag education and innovation process,” continues King. “Not only will the precision ag user benefit from this, but so will Ag Leader. We hope to learn from social media interaction, ultimately furthering the precision ag industry.”

Sensors Aim to Improve Your N Use on Corn

Kurt LawtonAg Leader, Fertilizer, Insights Weekly, Remote sensing

Insights WeeklyYou 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 cannot account for heavy spring rains—all too familiar to growers in some Midwest states during the past two years. These events caused a lot of N loss through nitrification, runoff and leaching. Peter Scharf, University of Missouri Extension agronomist estimated that 70 million bushels of corn were lost in his state in 2008, and even more was lost in 2009.

However, using sensors to read and apply the correct amount of N a plant needs at V6 growth stage is a technology that is beginning to catch on. But in order to reap potential benefits, growers must be willing and able to apply one-third to one-half of their target N amount pre-season, then come back and sidedress, feeding the healthy plant less and the weaker plants more.

A handful of companies have developed the technology, with Ag Leader Technology being one of them. Over 100 side-by-side comparison tests (sensor-applied versus grower’s normal flat rate) at the University of Missouri USDA-ARS have shown an average benefit of $15 to $20 per acre with sensors. Ag Leader trials with their OptRx crop sensor system delivered $50 to $60 per acre greater return in 2008, and a $22 per acre average return last year.

“We don’t expect such high returns year in and year out, unless high rainfall removes N early on from the profile, like it did in 2008 and 2009 in many areas,” says Chad Fick, OptRx product specialist for Ag Leader. “We have great confidence with the sensor, now it’s all about getting more growers to experience the possibilities in their fields.

Fick says they have conducted trials in Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Louisiana. “We’ve had good results in all cases except in Michigan where we didn’t get harvested grain data due to the corn being chopped. Most growers applied approximately 60 to 100 lbs N before planting, then came back at the V6 growth stage to sidedress the amount needed by the crop, as determined by the sensors,” he says. “The most important emphasis here is to make sure you have enough N so the crop does not get stressed before V6—because stress before then will cause permanent yield loss.”

To calibrate the sensors, Fick says it’s as simple as driving to the healthiest part of your field and taking a reference strip sensor reading there. “That gives the sensors a frame of reference to what the field is capable of achieving.

If you want to hear comments from several growers about their experience with this technology, check out the video on this page.